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ABOUTBy Moshé Machover – 17 Apr 2011
In memoriam: Comrade Oded (Odik) Pilavsky, 1932-2011
Matzpen co-founder Oded Pilavsky
Odik was, these many years, my comrade in struggle and a dear personal friend.
When we were still members of the Israeli CP, he was known to me as a fearless fighter for the interests of the working class, both immediate and historical interests – namely, for the future of humanity as a whole; for a just, equal and free society, without exploitation and oppression.
It was therefore no accident that when Akiva Orr and I looked for partners for establishing a new socialist organisation (which was eventually known as Matzpen), he was the first person we contacted. We discovered that he too was looking for partners for a road leading in the same direction.
Since that meeting, in the spring half a century ago, I was privileged to know him well personally. I loved him as a friend. Now the purest, most courageous and most honest heart I have ever known has stopped beating.
More than any other comrade, he embodied Matzpen’s political road.
Some define Matzpen as an “anti-Zionist organization”. This is misleading. Of course, we have struggled uncompromisingly against Zionist ideology and practice. But for us this was not the point of departure, but a necessary consequence of our revolutionary socialist, internationalist position. The journal Matzpen, of which Odik was editor, carried the sub-heading “A workers’ monthly”.
These values found their concentrated expression in Odik’s personality and activity. He was proud of his working-class origin (his father was a worker in the Dead Sea Potash industry) and of his belonging to this class. He was a leader of workers’ struggles – not an appointed leader, but one who emerged from the ranks, in the course of the struggle itself.
His death has deprived us of a friend and comrade; and the socialist movement in Israel, the region and the world has lost a rare personality, a first-rank fighter for a better world.
We shall cherish his memory, and continue along his path.
Moshé Machover
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