Before World War Two, the Bund contributed heavily to the modernization of Jewish life as well as promoting the idea that Jews were not bound to a territory and instead were connected through history, language and culture.[2] Many historians believe that this original Bund was lost to the effects of the holocaust in Poland, the demise of the Jewish Working Class and therefore the demise of the Yiddish infrastructure.[3] However it was slowly reestablished by Bundists who escaped and survived World War Two as the International Jewish Labor Bund.[2] They reconstituted the Bund in order to carry on fighting for the basic Bund principle that the Jewish problems can only be solved in places where Jews actively live through a democratic socialism that brings together Jews and non Jews. They established a World Coordinating Committee with the executives in New York City and sectors in Paris, Brussels and throughout Europe. This committee perpetuates a worldwide victory over democracy and socialism wherever Jewish communities exist.[4]
The International Jewish Labor Bund (IJLB) was admitted with an observer statute on the June 1947 Zürich Conference of the reconstituted Socialist International and as an "associated organization" at the Frankfurt founding Congress of the new Socialist International in 1951.[5][6]
In 1997 commemorative events were organized to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Bund in New York City, London, Warsaw, Paris[7] and Brussels, where the chairwoman of the Belgian chapter, herself 100 years old, was present.[8]
Summary of ideology
In 1958, the Jewish Labor Bund released a pamphlet commemorating the organization's 60th birthday. In it, the Bund summed up its ideology in seven points.[9]
Jews are dispersed throughout the World, and are a distinct nationality, though without a common state. They will remain in this situation in the foreseeable future. They cannot be remade into a one-state nation.
The State of Israel does not represent the entire Jewish People. It does not solve the Jewish problem. Even now, the population of Israel is less than 15 percent of the world's Jewry. Consequently, Israeli leaders are not in a position to assert Zionist claims of leadership over world Jewry, and their policies of Hebraization of Jewish life and of downgrading all Jewish communities outside of Israel (including those in democratic countries, such as the U.S.A) as places of exile are harmful and fallacious.
The key to the safety and the future of the Jews in Israel is peace with the Arabs. To achieve it, concessions on both sides are needed. Israel should recognize the moral right of the Arab refugees to repatriation and compensation. The Arab nations should recognize the existence of Israel. The United Nations should do their utmost to put an end to the Israeli-Arab conflict which invites Russian penetration into this turbulent region and is a menace to world peace.
The overwhelming majority of the Jewish people live outside of Israel; almost half of all Jews live in the United States. Jewish problems must be solved in the countries in which the Jews live.
Assimilation is an escape for individuals, not a solution for a whole people with a distinctive national culture and identity. Pluralism is the life-blood of real democracy, and this principle applies to national and cultural life within countries as well.
Jewish national problems arising within the countries where Jews reside can be solved on the basis of freedom and democracy – more securely, by democratic Socialism – which will guarantee Jews the rights of freedom and equality, including the right to a free, autonomous self-determination to maintain their own Jewish identity and national culture. Within the Jewish community the Bund strives for a secularized Jewish culture in the Yiddish language.
Two criteria of Jewish policies – one for Israel, another for the Diaspora - should not be followed. Wherever Jews live – whether as a national minority throughout the world or as a majority in Israel – Jewish policy, certainly Jewish Socialist policy, should be based on the same principles of freedom, democracy, international justice and brotherhood. Reconciliation of the claims of the Jewish people with the rights of other people is the essence of the Bund approach to Jewish problems, an approach which brings into harmony the Bund's Jewish national program with the spirit of democratic Socialist internationalism.
Bund Beliefs vs Zionist Beliefs
The Bund believes that Zionism was created as a product of anti-semitism. The mere presence of Jews among Christians causes anti-semitism and the only way to solve this problem is for the Jews to leave and settle Palestine. This differs from the Bundist belief that Antisemitism has cause in economic, political and psychological conditions of society and can be cured by changing the conditions that allowed it to exist in the first place. They believe the Jewish Problem is part of a general problem with humankind and can only be solved by improving humanity as a whole instead of focusing on a singular group.[4] Bundists also accused Zionists of failing to defend Jewish rights in Europe, collaborating with Polish anti-semites and they rejected the zionist goal of large-scale emigration to Palestine.[3] After Israel was established in 1948, a Bund Conference was held where they rejected the creation and instead called for a Binational Jewish Arab state in Palestine. They criticized the treatment and policies put in place by Zionists toward Palestinians.[3] As Zionism grew, its hatred of the Yiddish language grew with it. Zionists banned Yiddish in Palestine and became whole heartedly against the diaspora, claiming one could not be a real Jew and live somewhere that was not Palestine.[3]
Bundists teach international justice which combines the Jewish claims with respect for the rights of other groups as opposed to the Zionist ideals which propose nationalistic justice that ignores the suffering of other people. They promote and offer faith in humanity which severely contradicts the fear of non-jews that Zionism promotes. The Bund also advocates for greater cooperation with non Jews, especially the underprivileged and those who are suffering.[4] Bundists also believe in a concept called Doykeit in Yiddish and here-ness in English. The Bundist principle of Doykeit relates to their beliefs in non-zionism. It is the belief that national cultural autonomy of different groups of minorities within states is composed of many different minority groups.[10] Unlike Zionism, Doykeit favors localism as opposed to globalism in unifying Jewish culture[11]. The Bund differes from other Jewish movements because it is a movement of the masses. The Bund is not "for the people, it is the people"[12] . Another Bundist principle, called Veltlekhkeit in Yiddish, loosely translates to secularism in English. It exists as a modern alternative to traditional religious obscurantism of communities in the Russian Empire and Poland before World War Two. Veltlekheit sees religion as an individual and private matter but does not exist to promote anti religion ideologies.[10] Following the Veltlekhkeit principles, the Bund envisioned a uprising and revolution of the oppressed against the oppressors. They aimed at liberating all victims of capitalism, regardless of country, nation or race.[13] The Bund placed their faith in a socialist revolution where the goal was to liberate all of humankind from political, economical and national oppression-included in this was anti semitism.[13]
The Bund in the United States
After World War Two, New York City became an epicenter of Yiddish life and the Bund played a very minor role in that. However, although small, it was also the most confident and vocal of all Bund organizations, frequently declaring its antipathy towards capitalism and mainstream politics. They also voiced support for civil rights and ending racial discrimination, and later on opposed the American intervention in Vietnam.
The Bund in the US before 1945
At the turn of the 20th century the Jewish Labor Movement held significant influence on the American political and cultural arenas as well as on the Jewish streets. It played an important role and had largely visible contributions in the American Jewish communities. The mass emigration of thousands of Bundist exiles from the failed Russian Revolution in 1905 heightened the presence of American Yiddish Socialism in America. These Bundist migrants emphasized the inherent cultural value of Yiddish and promoted practicing Jewish Culture in communities that largely focused on rapid assimilation into western culture. However even with this Bundist presence in America, there was not a formal Bund organization established for the first half of the century. This was because the major epicenters of Bundist thought (Russian and then Poland) felt American conditions did not suit a Bund organization. Antisemitism was a defining characteristic of Jewish life in the Czarist Autocratic Russia where it was much less prominent in the democratic United States. This caused American Jews desire to assimilate with Western culture to skyrocket, proving different from their Russian Jewish counterparts. In Russia, Jews had been separated from Russians in all regards of life and therefore prevented them from wanting to assimilate with the Russian culture and become “Russian”. Before 1945, there were many attempts to establish a local Bund Organization and none were successful .
The establishment of the Jewish Labor Bund in the United States
A formal Bund organization was established in New York in 1946 due to damage to the Bund organizations in Europe. In Europe the Bund was physically and structurally damaged by the Nazis and overall Soviet Communism. The Polish Bund in particular was permanently damaged and became very weak soon after. Thousands of members of the Polish Bund escaped for the West and the American Jews began to realize the new, irreversibly altered, Bund reality. The Polish Bund would not survive the onslaught of the communist dominion and because of this the central administration point of Bund Organizations was formed in New York and a world conference of Bundist groups from across the globe was also established.
Emmanuel Nowogrodski was the secretary of the Bund World Coordinating Committee and he advocated for limiting support for the Polish Bund and instead focusing efforts into strengthening local socialism and building up the local socialist mass movement. American Jews felt a greater sense of duty to this cause in response to the fate of their European Jewish counterparts and became aware that now, the presence of Jewish life in all capitalist countries was in peril. At this point in time Zionism in the United States was at its peak strength and had a combined membership of about half a million people. This is vastly larger than the Bundist membership of a couple thousand, although an accurate number is hard to pin down as there are minimal records.
In November 1946 the Medem Club and the American Representation came together and established the first Bund Organization in New York. They promoted that the task of American Jews was to aid Jewish communities across the world but the only way they could do that was to first secure and strengthen their existence in the United States. Another, less official goal of the postwar Bund was to provide comfort to those whose lives had been destroyed by the holocaust and to ease their resettlement in America. Branches of the Bundist organization group were established in Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Toronto and Montreal.[14]
The End of the International Jewish Labor Bund in the United States
The International Jewish Labor Bund slowly fizzled out after its reestablishment in the United States in 1946. This was primarily due to the decision to try and reinstate models of the Russian and Polish Bunds on new and developing Jewish Communities. The conditions of these young Bunds in the United States were not capable of absorbing the ideals that exists in the Russian and Polish pre-war Bunds. In order to have had a successful restoration of the Bund in the postwar United States, they would have needed to develop new ideals that reflected the social, political and cultural aspects of each individual community.[3] The Bund in the United States was intense about maintaining and recreating the pre-war Bund legacy into the post war Bund years. Therefore they focused on promoting socialism, revolution and Yiddish culture in multi ethnic cultures and overall focused on the global role of the Bund instead of the role of the Bund in individual communities.[2] This focus on the political and theoretical spheres led to the fall of the Bund in the United States and across the globe.[2]
Executive of the World Coordinating Committee in 1957:[17] David Meier, Abraham Stolar, Emanuel Sherer, Emanuel Novogrodski, Benjamin Tabatchinski, Pinchas Schwartz, Leon Oler, Alexander Erlich, J.S. Hertz, Joseph Gutgold, Hershel Himelfarb, Baruch Shefner
Members of the World Coordinating Committee 1957:
Peretz Guterman, F. Shrager, Leon Stern (all three from France), Meyer Treibeer, Berl Fuchs (both from Brazil), Berl Rosner (England), Tschechanowski (Belgium), Shimon Yezher, Tuvie Meisel (both from Mexico), Kowalsman (Uruguay), Alexander Mints, Dr. M. Peretz (both from Argentina), S. M. Oshry, M. L. Polin, Ch. S. Kasdan (all from USA), Artur Lermer, Manie Reinhartz (both from Canada), Paul Olberg (Sweden), Bunem Wiener, Mendel Kosher, (both from Australia), Bentzl Zalwitz, Pesach Burshin, Israel Artuski (all three from Israel)
This was the third Bund World Conference and it had a more positive outlook on Israel than Bundist groups in the past. They acknowledged the development of an Active Bund Organization inside Israel. At this meeting they acknowledged the existence of Israel while continuing to reject the Zionist identification of Israel as the homeland for all Jews and the international center of Jewish life.[3]
There have been three publishing houses established across the world that have published a total of 50 volumes printed in Yiddish. The IJLB published in New York a monthly journal in Yiddish, Undzer Tzayt.[10] It also published the Jewish Labor Bund Bulletin and the Bulletin of the Jewish Youth Movement.[25] There was also Shloyme Mendelson Farlag in Mexico City and Idbuch in Buenos Aires. There were also many smaller volumes published across the world.[4]
In 1957, for the sixtieth years of existence of the Bund, the IJLB published a commemorative book in Yiddish and English with photographs, Der Bund In Bilder, 1897-1957.[26]
Unser Shtine: a Yiddish daily based out of Paris and circulated in all European Jewish Communities
The Workers Circle or Der Arbeter Ring, formerly The Workmen's Circle, is an American Jewish nonprofit organization that promotes social and economic justice, Jewish community and education, including Yiddish studies, and Ashkenazic culture. It operates schools and Yiddish education programs, and year-round programs of concerts, lectures and secular holiday celebrations. The organization has community branch offices throughout North America, a national headquarters in New York City.
Jewish political movements refer to the organized efforts of Jews to build their own political parties or otherwise represent their interest in politics outside the Jewish community. From the time of the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans to the foundation of Israel the Jewish people had no territory, and, until the 19th century they by-and-large were also denied equal rights in the countries in which they lived. Thus, until the 19th century effort for the emancipation of the Jews, almost all Jewish political struggles were internal, and dealt primarily with either religious issues or issues of a particular Jewish community.
The Folkspartei was founded after the 1905 pogroms in the Russian Empire by Simon Dubnow and Israel Efrojkin. The party took part in several elections in Poland and Lithuania in the 1920s and 1930s and did not survive the Holocaust.
As an organized nationalist movement, Zionism is generally considered to have been founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897. However, the history of Zionism began earlier and is intertwined with Jewish history and Judaism. The organizations of Hovevei Zion, held as the forerunners of modern Zionist ideals, were responsible for the creation of 20 Jewish towns in Palestine between 1870 and 1897.
Zionist-Socialist Workers Party, often referred to simply as Zionist-Socialists or S.S. by their Russian initials, was a Jewish territorialist and socialist political party in the Russian Empire and Poland, that emerged from the Vozrozhdenie (Renaissance) group in 1904. The party held its founding conference in Odessa in 1905.
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Vladimir Davidovich Medem, né Grinberg, was a Russian Jewish politician and ideologue of the Jewish Labour Bund. The Medem Library in Paris, the largest European Yiddish institution, bears his name.
The Arbeter-ring in Yisroel – Brith Haavoda was the Israeli branch of the International Jewish Labor Bund, launched in 1951 and disbanded in 2019.
The "Bund" in Latvia was a Jewish socialist party in Latvia between the two World Wars, adhering to the political line of the General Jewish Labour Bund.
The General Jewish Labour Bund in Poland was a Jewish socialist party in Poland which promoted the political, cultural and social autonomy of Jewish workers, sought to combat antisemitism and was generally opposed to Zionism.
Arkadi Kremer was a Russian socialist leader known as the 'Father of the Bund'. This organisation was instrumental in the development of Russian Marxism, the Jewish labour movement and Jewish nationalism.
Bundism is a secular Jewish socialist movement whose first organizational manifestation was the General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, and Russia, founded in the Russian Empire in 1897.
The Jewish left consists of Jews who identify with, or support, left-wing or left-liberal causes, consciously as Jews, either as individuals or through organizations. There is no one organization or movement which constitutes the Jewish left, however. Jews have been major forces in the history of the labor movement, the settlement house movement, the women's rights movement, anti-racist and anti-colonialist work, and anti-fascist and anti-capitalist organizations of many forms in Europe, the United States, Australia, Algeria, Iraq, Ethiopia, South Africa, and modern-day Israel. Jews have a history of involvement in anarchism, socialism, Marxism, and Western liberalism. Although the expression "on the left" covers a range of politics, many well-known figures "on the left" have been of Jews who were born into Jewish families and have various degrees of connection to Jewish communities, Jewish culture, Jewish tradition, or the Jewish religion in its many variants.
Poale Zion was a movement of Marxist–Zionist Jewish workers founded in various cities of Poland, Europe and the Russian Empire at about the turn of the 20th century after the Bund rejected Zionism in 1901.
Labor Zionism or socialist Zionism refers to the left-wing, socialist variation of Zionism. For many years, it was the most significant tendency among Zionists and Zionist organizations, and was seen as the Zionist sector of the historic Jewish labour movements of Eastern Europe and Central Europe, eventually developing local units in most countries with sizable Jewish populations. Unlike the "political Zionist" tendency founded by Theodor Herzl and advocated by Chaim Weizmann, Labor Zionists did not believe that a Jewish state would be created by simply appealing to the international community or to powerful nations such as the United Kingdom, Germany, or the former Ottoman Empire. Rather, they believed that a Jewish state could only be created through the efforts of the Jewish working class making aliyah to the Land of Israel and raising a country through the creation of a Labor Jewish society with rural kibbutzim and moshavim, and an urban Jewish Proletariat.
The General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia, generally called The Bund or the Jewish Labour Bund, was a secular Jewish socialist party initially formed in the Russian Empire and active between 1897 and 1920. In 1917 the Bund organizations in Poland seceded from the Russian Bund and created a new Polish General Jewish Labour Bund which continued to operate in Poland in the years between the two world wars. The majority faction of the Russian Bund was dissolved in 1921 and incorporated into the Communist Party. Other remnants of the Bund endured in various countries. A member of the Bund was called a Bundist.
Pesach Liebmann Hersch, also Liebman Hersh, was a professor of demography and statistics at the University of Geneva, and an intellectual of the Jewish Labor Bund, whose pioneering work on Jewish migration achieved international recognition in the period after the First World War.
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Twenty Years with the Jewish Labor Bund: A Memoir of Interwar Poland, by Bernard Goldstein, edited and translated from the Yiddish by Marvin Zuckerman, Purdue University Press, 2016.
The International Jewish Labor Bund after 1945: Toward a Global History by David Slucki, 2012
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