Yitzhak Ben-Zvi helps Israel Shochat, Israel Giladi…

Yitzhak Ben-Zvi helps Israel Shochat, Israel Giladi and Alexander Zeid to transform Bar Giora into ha-Shomer ("The Watchmen"), a Jewish self-defense organization that offers its services to other Jewish agricultural settlements in return for an annual fee, on April 4, 1909.

The founders, many of whom are recent arrivals from Russia who had organized self-defense organizations during the pogroms five years earlier, are determined that in Palestine Jews will be more effective in defending themselves.