Chaim Khurgin's fate was predetermined from birth: he was supposed to become a rabbi, or if that didn't work out – a merchant, and live a quiet life in Minsk. But Khurgin wanted to break conventions and build a new, better world. Not finding his place among Russian revolutionaries, he directed all his strength and resources toward Zionist activities. This revolution was not as global and had much more down-to-earth goals: Khurgin taught hundreds of Jews to engage in agriculture, and his contribution here is hard to overestimate.

Chaim Khurgin was born in 1855 in Minsk to a traditional Jewish family. His father was a wealthy merchant, and other relatives were engaged in trade or studied the Torah. Chaim, as the most capable of the sons, was supposed to follow the second path. However, after studying for some time at a yeshiva, he refused to become a rabbi. Instead, young Khurgin went to university – to study dentistry. This was certainly an honorable and profitable profession, but what is a dentist compared to a rabbi or at least a merchant? This was not what his parents, respected people in the Jewish community, had dreamed of. Wealthy Jews at that time engaged in trade, poor ones – in crafts. And at every step, the young student was beset by temptations: he could break away from the community, sever ties with religion, become fascinated by alien ideas. But the young man insisted on his way. Moreover, to study, Chaim had to travel far from home: there was no university in Minsk at that time. First, Khurgin went to Dorpat (now Tartu), and then transferred from there to Kharkiv University.

The 1870s were turbulent times, times of intellectual ferment. "The Decemberists awakened Herzen, Herzen launched revolutionary agitation." Chaim Khurgin reaped the fruits of this agitation as an enthusiastic member of the Russian revolutionary organization "Narodnaya Volya" (People's Will). The revolutionaries believed that the death of Alexander II would push Russia toward revolution and the overthrow of the existing unjust system.

Chaim constantly felt this injustice upon himself: Jewish rights were seriously limited, and even wealth didn't help. The program of the Narodnaya Volya, however, included points about freedom of religion, the right of peoples to national self-determination, about freedom in general, and also about equality and brotherhood – all this greatly attracted the 20-year-old youth. And Chaim Khurgin threw himself headlong into the revolutionary struggle.

The Narodnaya Volya achieved their goal: the assassination attempt on Alexander II, carried out by members of the organization on March 1, 1881, was successful. However, this led neither to democratic reforms nor to a change of system. Alexander III, who ascended to the throne after his father's murder, on the contrary, froze many of Alexander II's reforms. Arrests and executions began among "Narodnaya Volya" activists. By that time, Chaim had already finished university and returned to Minsk. He remained in the organization's ranks and became a courier. "Angry Chaim," as he was called in Narodnaya Volya circles, carried letters to Geneva and London, where the surviving ideologists of the movement had fled after the murder of the previous tsar. He was caught right at the border with one such letter from émigré Lev Hartman (one of the participants in the assassination attempt on the tsar, who was hiding in France).

Khurgin ended up in prison. The sentence was relatively mild: he was deprived of freedom for eight months, after which he had to remain under police surveillance for several more years. But his stay in prison unexpectedly brought Chaim happiness. In confinement, Khurgin met his future wife. Esther was probably the most unusual Jewish girl in Minsk. The daughter of a rabbi, she had been married off very young, but divorced, left home and now lived alone, earning her living by working in a shop – an unheard-of thing in those times! She had energy to spare: she engaged in political work and defended the rights of Jewish women to education, work and equality. With her active participation, a shelter was opened for poor Jewish girls who, like herself, wanted to lead a secular lifestyle. Esther helped them get settled, find work, education and housing. In her free time from fighting for women's equality, Esther visited Jewish political prisoners – bringing them news from the outside world and food. That's how she met Chaim. Esther and Chaim didn't wait for his release, but got married in prison. The witnesses at their wedding were prison guards – to two revolutionarily-minded young people, this must have seemed extraordinarily romantic.

But then those eight months passed, and Khurgin was released. Prison had not reformed him: he immediately began organizing Jewish workers' circles – the first in the Russian Empire. They were divided into three types. In literacy circles, they taught reading and writing in Russian (a quite harmless activity, if you didn't know that Khurgin's main goal was to teach workers to read Russian revolutionary leaflets). In natural science circles, they taught the basics of physics, chemistry and biology. And in the third circle, the socialist one, they prepared future revolutionaries. Two circles were legal, the third, of course, was not. Graduates of the underground circle got jobs in factories and taught workers how to defend their rights through strikes.

We cannot say exactly what caused Khurgin to turn away from ideas of Russian revolution – perhaps it was his wife's influence or something else. One can also suppose that the pogroms of 1881-83 did not pass Chaim by, and consider what his comrades' reaction was. His former comrades from Narodnaya Volya consciously ignored the national character of the pogroms and emphasized only their social nature. But as a result, he changed the direction of his energy – now spending it for the benefit of Zionism, ideas of a united Israel and return to roots.

He returned to his profession and became a respected doctor in Minsk. He acquired new acquaintances who could rightfully be called the Jewish elite. This "turnaround" puzzled the Minsk police. The police chief, who came for an inspection to the city's main synagogue, was extraordinarily surprised to meet his revolutionary charge there wearing tefillin and a kippah.