Aaron David Gordon (; 9 June 1856 – 22 February 1922), more commonly known as A. D. Gordon, was a Labour Zionist thinker and the spiritual force behind practical Zionism and Labor Zionism. He founded Hapoel Hatzair, a movement that set the tone for the Zionist movement for many years to come. Influenced by Leo Tolstoy and others, it is said that in effect he made a religion of labor. Gordon moved to Ottoman Palestine in 1904, at age 48, where he was revered by younger Zionist pioneers for leading by example. Biography Aaron David Gordon was the only child of a well-to-do family of Orthodox Jews. He was self-educated in both religious and general studies, and spoke several languages. For thirty years, he managed an estate, where he proved to be a charismatic educator and community activist. Gordon married his cousin, Faige Tartakov, at a young age and had seven children with her, though only two of them survived. Gordon died of throat cancer on Kibbutz Degania Alef in 1922 at the age of 66. Zionist activism Gordon was an early member of the Hibbat Zion movement and made aliyah to Ottoman Palestine in 1904, when he was 48, after being persuaded by his wife not to emigrate to America. His daughter Yael followed him in 1908 and his wife about a year later, but his son stayed behind to continue his religious studieshe seems to have refused to accompany his father because of differences in their religious outlooks. Four months after she arrived in the country, his wife became ill and died. Gordon lived in Petah Tikva and Rishon LeZion, moved to the Galilee in 1912, travelled the country taking manual jobs and engaging the youth, until finally settling in Kvutzat Degania near the Sea of Galilee in 1919. He lived simply and supported himself as a hired agricultural hand, while writing his emerging philosophy at night. Although he participated in the Zionist Congress of 1911, Gordon refused to become involved in any of the Zionist political parties, out of principle. In 1905 he founded and led Hapoel Hatzair ("The Young Worker"), a non-Marxist, Zionist movement, as opposed to the Poale Zion movement which was more Marxist in orientation and associated with Ber Borochov and Nahum Syrkin. Views and opinions Gordon believed that all of Jewish suffering could be traced to the parasitic state of Jews in the