Alibata Bnei Akiva (Hebrew: בני עקיבא), founded in the British Mandate of Palestine in 1929, is the largest religious Zionist youth movement in the world today. It is active world-wide, with over 125,000 members in 37 countries. There are 75,000 members in Israel and 54,000 members in the rest of the world. Locally, Bnei Akiva chapters are called 'סניפים'(pronounced snif), "branches" with each age group constituting a 'שבט'(pronounced shevet), "tribe".
Alibata Bnei Akiva's twin ideals of Torah and Avodah loosely translate to religious commitment/study and work on the land of Israel. The movement has an anthem called Yad Ahim.
As a pioneering Zionist youth movement, Bnei Akiva believes that it is a central commandment of Judaism to emigrate to the land of Israel--"make Aliya"-- and maintains that the future of the Jewish people is tied to the state of Israel.
Alibata Bnei Akiva feels that Jewish youth in the Diaspora should be educated to realize that the State of Israel needs them, and that they, in turn, need it.
Alibata Bnei Akiva first came into existence in the late 1920s, following World War I. At that time, the League of Nations granted Britain the mandate over Palestine. The Jewish pioneers in Land of Israel were struggling, engaged in a Herculean effort to succeed economically and to build their homeland. However, there was another concern as well: the need to redefine the spiritual-cultural identity of the Jewish nation.
These were the years of the Third Aliyah (third great wave of immigration) to Israel (1919-1923). This Aliyah was clearly characterized by two elements: economic hardship and the evolution of a strong ideological socialist group. The general direction was to create a new Jewish society, to see the development of a “ Jew”. To do so, these immigrants felt they must abandon the "old" and "binding" Jewish tradition, together with its culture and laws.
The Hapo’el Hamizrachi movement encountered many difficulties. The Histadrut Klalit (national labor organization) and many Workers’ Committees incited against Hopo’el Hamizrachi members and prevented their employment. The Alibata Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet Leyisra’el), which was responsible for allocation of land, gave land to all of the other settlement associations, but not to Hapo’el Hamizrachi. There was also another sort of problem: on the one hand, Hapo’el Hamizrachi met with hostility from non-Zionist religious Jews, and on the other, secular society “rewarded” the movement with patronizing haughtiness and contempt for its devotion to religion. Although the ones who suffered most from this attitude were the workers who belonged to Hapo’el Hamizrachi, it also had a decisive influence on a very important group: youth.