[Achad Ha’am (Asher Ginzburg)]. Derech HaChaim - Yesodei Agudath Benei Moshe.

Achad Ha’am (1856-1927) was the “father of cultured, Spiritual Zionism.” In 1889, Joshua Barzilai (Eisenstadt) founded Benei Moshe, a secret Russian society dedicated to the Zionist program of Achad Ha’am. Achad Ha’am himself soon took over leadership of the organization and in 1899 published Derech HaChaim in which he defined the purpose and need for Zionist resettlement of the Land of Israel and the importance of establishing societies to further this goal. Avraham Eliyahu Lubarsky and Eliyahu Ze’ev [Wolf] Lewin-Epstein, both members of Benei Moshe, reprinted the Jerusalem edition of the Derech HaChaim in New York in 1905. They hoped that it would convince American Jews living securely in a free country to instead assist in establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. (see p. 5).