Akiva "Aki" Orr ( he, עקיבא "עקי" אור, born Karl Sebastian Sonnenberg; June 19, 1931 – February 7, 2013) was an
Israeli writer and political activist.
He was an outspoken critic of
Zionism
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
and supported a
one-state solution
The one-state solution, sometimes also called a bi-national state, is a proposed approach to resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, according to which one state must be established between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean. Propone ...
to the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict. After 1968 Orr was a leading advocate of radical
direct democracy.
Early life
Orr was born in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
in 1931. His parents left
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
when he was three years old, in the aftermath of the
Nazi rise to power
Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the '' Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Party). He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Be ...
, and moved to
Palestine, then under
British rule
The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent;
*
* it is also called Crown rule in India,
*
*
*
*
or Direct rule in India,
* Quote: "Mill, who was hims ...
. Orr grew up in
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the ...
and attended the First Municipal School of Tel Aviv. He was a keen swimmer and was the Maccabi 200 m breast-stroke champion in 1946 and 1947. In 1946 he was drafted into the
Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary organization that was to develop into the
Israeli Defence Forces
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branch ...
following the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. He joined the Navy, which played a minor role in the 1948 War of Independence.
Political career
"Maki" Communist party
Orr served in the Israeli navy until 1950, and then joined the merchant navy. He participated in the Israeli Seamen's Strike of 1951, which lasted 40 days. It was during this time that he became politicized in the wake of a beating incurred at the hands of the Israeli police. In the same year he joined the
Israeli Communist Party. He remained in the merchant navy until 1955, when he moved to
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
to study mathematics and physics at the
Hebrew University
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...
. There, he served as secretary of the Union of Communist Science Students at the University. Following his graduation in 1958, he started teaching mathematics and physics at the AIU Technical College.
In 1961, Orr published his first major work. Written with
Moshe Machover
Moses ( el, Μωϋσῆς),from Latin and Greek Moishe ( yi, משה),from Yiddish Moshe ( he, מֹשֶׁה),from Modern Hebrew or Movses ( Armenian: Մովսես) from Armenian is a male given name, after the biblical figure Moses.
According to t ...
under the pseudonym, A Israeli, ''Shalom, Shalom ve'ein Shalom'' (Hebrew: ; ''Peace, Peace, and there is no Peace'') set out to demonstrate how
Israeli Prime Minister
The prime minister of Israel ( he, רֹאשׁ הַמֶּמְשָׁלָה, Rosh HaMemshala, Head of the Government, Hebrew acronym: he2, רה״מ; ar, رئيس الحكومة, ''Ra'īs al-Ḥukūma'') is the head of government and chief exe ...
Ben-Gurion had colluded with Britain and France in a colonial war against
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
and to disprove Ben-Gurion's claims that the
1956 Suez War had been a war fought to save Israel from annihilation (see
Protocol of Sèvres
The Protocol of Sèvres (French, ''Protocole de Sèvres'') was a secret agreement reached between the governments of Israel, France and the United Kingdom during discussions held between 22 and 24 October 1956 at Sèvres, France. The protocol c ...
).
"Matzpen" socialist organization
In 1962, Orr left the Israeli Communist Party and, alongside Machover, Oded Pilavsky and Jeremy Kaplan, formed the Israeli Socialist Organization, better known by the name of its publication ''
Matzpen
Matzpen ( he, מצפן, lit. 'Compass') is the name of a revolutionary socialist and anti-Zionist organisation, founded in Israel in 1962 which was active until the 1980s. Its official name was the Socialist Organisation in Israel, but it became ...
''. Its founders rejected what they saw as the Israeli Communist Party's unquestioning loyalty to the Soviet Union. They defined "Socialism" as a regime run by
workers councils
A workers' council or labor council is a form of political and economic organization in which a workplace or municipality is governed by a council made up of workers or their elected delegates. The workers within each council decide on what thei ...
, not by a political party.
Matzpen criticized the Zionist project in Israel as a colonizing project, although they were careful to distinguish it from the European colonialism of the 19th and 20th century, arguing that the Zionists had come to Palestine to expropriate the indigenous population rather than to exploit them economically.
Matzpen remained on the fringes of Israeli politics throughout its existence, never gaining more than a few dozen members, although the group began to receive attention in the Israeli press after the 1967 war and the emergence of the
Palestinian Liberation Organization
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ar, منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية, ') is a Palestinian nationalist political and militant organization founded in 1964 with the initial purpose of establishing Arab unity and ...
.
In London
Orr left Israel in 1964 to study Cosmology in London, where he continued to be politically active. He co-founded and was on the editorial board of ''ISRACA'' (Israeli Revolutionary Action Committee Abroad), an anti-Zionist publication "devoted to a critique of the ideological, cultural and psychological aspects of Political Zionism".
In London, Orr became acquainted with several prominent left-wing intellectuals, such as the Austrian poet
Erich Fried
Erich Fried (6 May 1921 – 22 November 1988) was an Austrian-born poet, writer, and translator. He initially became known to a broader public in both Germany and Austria for his political poetry, and later for his love poems. As a writer, he mo ...
, the veteran revolutionary
Rosa Meyer-Leviné (1890 - 1979), the German student leader
Rudi Dutschke
Alfred Willi Rudolf "Rudi" Dutschke (; 7 March 1940 – 24 December 1979) was a German sociologist and political activist who, until severely injured by an assassin in 1968, was a leading charismatic figure within the West German Socialist Stu ...
, and the Trinidadian Marxist and cricketing authority
C. L. R. James
Cyril Lionel Robert James (4 January 1901 – 31 May 1989),Fraser, C. Gerald, '' The New York Times'', 2 June 1989. who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J. R. Johnson, was a Trinidadian historian, journalist and Marxist. His works are i ...
, with whom he enjoyed close friendships.
In 1968 Orr joined the London-based group
Solidarity, a
libertarian socialist
Libertarian socialism, also known by various other names, is a left-wing,Diemer, Ulli (1997)"What Is Libertarian Socialism?" The Anarchist Library. Retrieved 4 August 2019. anti-authoritarian, anti-statist and libertarianLong, Roderick T. (20 ...
organization, and befriended its Greek mentor
Cornelius Castoriadis
Cornelius Castoriadis ( el, Κορνήλιος Καστοριάδης; 11 March 1922 – 26 December 1997) was a Greek-FrenchMemos 2014, p. 18: "he was ... granted full French citizenship in 1970." philosopher, social critic, economist, ps ...
. From this time on, Orr became a libertarian socialist (not ideologically bound to the theories of
Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
and
Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
). The year 1972 saw the publication of ''The Other Israel: The Radical Case Against Zionism'', a collection of articles and documents by various Matzpen members, including Orr, Machover and Haim Hanegbi, edited by Arie Bober.
In 1984 Ithaca Press published Orr's ''The Un-Jewish State: the Politics of Jewish Identity in Israel'', in which he argued that political Zionism had failed to create a secular Jewish identity.
In 1994, ''Israel: Politics, Myths and Identity Crises'' was published, a collection of Orr's essays that also dealt with issues arising from the clash between Israel's secular and Jewish identities. By this time, Orr had moved back to Israel (in 1990).
Beginning in the 1970s Orr lectured in the United Kingdom and Israel to student bodies and political organizations on various aspects of the
Arab-Israeli conflict
The Arab citizens of Israel are the largest ethnic minority in the country. They comprise a hybrid community of Israeli citizens with a heritage of Palestinian citizenship, mixed religions (Muslim, Christian or Druze), bilingual in Arabic an ...
and on direct democracy. He was invited to speak at the
2011 Israeli tent protests on
Rothschild Boulevard
Rothschild Boulevard (, ''Sderot Rotshild'') is one of the principal streets in the center of Tel Aviv, Israel, beginning in Neve Tzedek at its southwestern edge and running north to Habima Theatre. It is one of the most expensive streets in the ...
, Tel Aviv, where he delivered lectures on the Seamen's Strike of 1951 and on direct democracy.
Direct democracy
Following his conversion to libertarian socialism in the late 1960s, Orr became increasingly active in the promotion of radical direct democracy, which rejects the notion of
representative democracy
Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy, is a type of democracy where elected people represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of represe ...
and calls for political decision-making to be placed in the hands of every single citizen.
His ideas were grounded in the events of
May 1968 in France
Beginning in May 1968, a period of civil unrest occurred throughout France, lasting some seven weeks and punctuated by demonstrations, general strikes, as well as the occupation of universities and factories. At the height of events, which ...
. In the wake of this wildcat general strike (opposed at first by all unions and political parties), which at its peak saw 10 million employees on strike for 20 days, thousands of self-managed committees sprang up throughout the country. They did not make any economic demands but asserted their right to run their institutions independently.
Drawing on contemporary reports of the ''Observer'' journalists
Patrick Seale and Maureen McConville, Orr asserted that the desire of the strikers was not to reform the political system but to replace it entirely by a system of democratic self-governance, in which all employees have a say in the decision-making process. Orr argued that while in 1968 the technology did not exist to enable all citizens to participate in decision making, it exists today. He argued that political corruption is an inherent feature of politics by representatives and of all elections and that only a system of "politics without politicians" can eliminate corruption.
Orr wrote and distributed two major works on direct democracy, ''Politics without Politicians'', an outline of the central tenets of direct democracy, and ''Big Business, Big Government or Direct Democracy: Who Should Shape Society?'', a history of the 20th century viewed in terms of the conflict between state and private control of the economy, a conflict that he regarded as the defining feature of the epoch. He argued that a system of direct democracy is the only viable alternative to "big government states" or "big business states", both of which he viewed as oppressive forms of governance.
[Orr, A. (2007). ''Big Business, Big Government or Direct Democracy: Who Should Shape Society?']
Online version
Accessed 23 August 2009.
Works
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
*1972 – ''The Other Israel: the Radical Case against Zionism'', ed. Arie Bober, with contributions by various Matzpen members (
Doubleday)
*1984 – ''The Un-Jewish State: The Politics of Jewish Identity in Israel'' (Ithaca Press)
*1994 – ''Israel: Politics, Myths and Identity Crises'' (
Pluto Press
Pluto Press is a British independent book publisher based in London, founded in 1969. Originally, it was the publishing arm of the International Socialists (today known as the Socialist Workers Party), until it changed hands and was replaced ...
)
*2005 – ''Politics without Politicians'' (self-published, available online)
*2007 – ''Big Business, Big Government or Direct Democracy: Who Should Shape Society?'' (World Power Politics of the 20th Century and their Lesson) (self-published, available online)
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
*1961 – ''Peace Peace & There is No Peace - ''Shalom, Shalom ve'ein Shalom'' (with Moshe Machover)
*2002 – ''Alternative to a Psychotic State''
*2003 – ''From Protest to Revolution'' (Five talks to young activists)
*2005 – ''Flashbacks'' (recollections of London)
References
Further reading
* Fiedler, Lutz (2022), ''Matzpen. A History of Israeli Dissidence'', Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
ISBN 9781474451178
* Moshe Machover, In memoriam: Akiva “Aki” Orr, https://matzpen.org/english/2013-03-10/in-memoriam-akiva-aki-orr/
External links
Online versions of all Orr's writings.Direct Democracy website.Videos of Akiva Orr on Left in Hebrew Video ArchiveIn Memoriam by Matzpen.In Memoriam by Jews For Justice For Palestinians.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Orr, Aki
1931 births
2013 deaths
Academics of the University of Bradford
Direct democracy activists
Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to Mandatory Palestine
Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni
Israeli activists
Israeli socialists
Jewish anti-Zionism in the United Kingdom
Jewish socialists
People from Tel Aviv