In 1907-1908, a socialist commune led by Manya Wilbushewitch and Israel Shochat was contracted to run the farm autonomously for one year, without administrative interference. Wilbushewitch received the support of Yehoshua Hankin, who brought in Eliahu Krause to design an operative plan. The eighteen commune members, young men and women from Sejera and elsewhere in Palestine, aided by a number of sympathisers, managed for the first time to generate a profit and ensure constant employment for all workers of Sejera (with the side effect that outside Arab workers were no longer needed), while also pioneering full equality for women. Along with their work in agriculture there were daily educational meetings where they learned Hebrew from the young David Grün, the future prime-minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion, Arabic from an Arab villager, socialist theory from Manya Wilbushewitch, and the latest news from Israel Shochat. Less publicly, the group used Sejera for training the newly constituted Bar-Giora Jewish self-defense organisation, which eventually took over from Circassians and Arabs the guarding duties in Sejera and other nearby Jewish settlements. Manya Wilbushewitch and Israel Shochat married in Sejera in 1908. Ben Gurion worked as a farm hand and later as a guard for 13 months from 1908; at the time Sejera had a population of around 200.