THE JEWISH LABOR BUND
The Jewish Labor Bund was a socialist, anti-Zionist party formed at the tail end of the Russian Empire, which advocated for democratic socialism, secular Yiddish culture, Marxist principles, and, most importantly, Jewish national and cultural autonomy within a multinational, democratic state.
The Bund presented itself as a political alternative to Zionism, advocating for integration in the Diaspora, working class solidarity, and internationalism instead. For this reason, its most core principle was the concept of doykeit, meaning “hereness,” an ideology summarized by their saying, “Where we live is our country!”
Though the Soviet Union disbanded the Bund in the 1920s as it cracked down on Jewish political organizing, its legacy lived on through the International Jewish Labor Bund and the Polish Labor Bund. By the late 1930s, the Bund was the most popular Jewish political party in Poland, with the support of as many as 80% of Jewish voters in some notable cities, though in other areas of the country, the divide between supporters of Bundism and Zionism was split about evenly.
LET'S TALK ABOUT COLLECTIVE LIBERATION...AGAIN
Collective liberation is the theory that, since “all systems of oppression are interconnected” – an overly simplistic, Western-centric view to begin with – then it goes to stand that the liberation of one group (e.g. Jews) is inherently bound to the liberation of all other groups.
There is, to date, zero empirical data to back this theory. There are, however, a number of glaring issues with the concept:
- Liberation can mean different, contradictory, or opposing things to different groups of people.
- Advocates for collective liberation have repeatedly turned their theory into a hierarchy of causes, suppressing advocacy for one group in favor of another, simply by arguing that, ultimately, the liberation of the latter will eventually free the former.
- The theory can only possibly work if allyship is reciprocal, rather than one-directional. For Jews, it’s often been one-directional.
THE BUND'S FAILED PURSUIT OF COLLECTIVE LIBERATION
I’ve argued before that it’s impossible to assertain whether most Jews in pre-Holocaust Europe were Zionist or anti-Zionist, as no comprehensive surveys exist on the matter. However, there is no question that, in Warsaw, specifically, the Bund was the dominant Jewish political party. And yet, at the time of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, what should’ve been, above all, their moment, the Bund’s role in Jewish political organizing was relegated to the background.
Why? In the ghetto, the Bund was hesitant to plan any sort of military defensive action against the Nazis. Instead, the group’s leadership promoted the idea that the Poles would come to the Jews’ aid by recognizing their mutual struggle against the Germans. When this help never materialized — on the contrary, the Polish population was largely indifferent to the plight of the Jews at best, or actively supportive at worst — the Bund downplayed the Poles’ lack of solidarity.
Meanwhile, the ghetto’s youth, led by Zionist organizations, organized in unanimous support to carry out action against the Germans.
"Regarding some aspects of the Bund’s propaganda activity in the ghettos, the party persisted in its efforts to portray the plight of the Jews as inseparable from the dire straits of Poland in general, and as foreshadowing the fate in store for all Poles. In other words, the Bund worked hard to emphasize the parallels between the situation of the Jews and the Poles under the oppressive conditions that Nazi rule created for the two peoples. This symmetrical view gave rise to illusions and erroneous operational tactics. It caused the Bund to wait for Polish-Jewish solidarity to materialize 'for our freedom and yours' and, when this failed to happen, to ignore or downplay the absence of solidarity."
Matitiahu Minc, historian on Jewish political movements in pre-Holocaust Europe
A HIERARCHY OF CAUSES
As mentioned, in practice, collective liberation does not manifest as multidirectional solidarity but instead devolves into a hierarchy of causes. So was the case in the Warsaw Ghetto.
The Bund tried, for years, to appeal to their non-Jewish comrades outside the ghetto walls, characterized by their slogan, “For our freedom and yours!” At the core of the Bund’s argument was that the current fate of the Jews under Nazi rule is what awaited the Poles
Their tactics backfired. While the Bund prioritized Jewish-Polish solidarity, the Polish Socialist Party argued that, if the same fate was to come for the Poles, then it was in their best interest to protect themselves first, rather than come to the aid of the Jews.
I can’t help but see some contemporary parallels. Proponents of collective liberation insist that Jews will be safe from antisemitism once Palestine is free. In the meantime, we are to deprioritize ourselves. But this expectation never goes the other way around. In other words, these same people would never tell Palestinians to deprioritize themselves, because once antisemitism is fixed, Palestine will be free.
REWRITING A PAINFUL LEGACY
There is little glory in the Jewish Labor Bund’s legacy. Their ideological principle of doikeyt was shattered when their own friends and neighbors turned them in to the Nazis and their collaborators, sending a clear message: Jews are not welcome here.
When push came to shove, the Bund, which had loudly professed anti-fascism, balked, waiting for solidarity that they were sure would come but never did, ultimately agreeing to join a number of Zionist groups which had coalesced into the Jewish Combat Organization in the Warsaw Ghetto.
And yet, today, many decades later, antizionists idealize the Bund, dancing around the great elephant in the room: that the Bundists were wrong. That solidarity with the working class and other victims of Nazi brutality did not save them. That despite their affinity to their countries of birth, those countries plainly did not want them there.
One could be forgiven for believing that the Bund’s ideology would succeed in the 1930s and 1940s. But to continue to argue in its favor with the privilege of hindsight is not only absurd. It’s indefensible.
In 1943, Szmul Zygielbojm, a Polish Bundist leader, took his own life in London to protest the Allied countries’ indifference toward the plight of the Jews...an indifference that flew in the face of the Bund’s long-held theories around political organizing and solidarity.
Like the rest of European Jewry, most Bundists were murdered in the Shoah.
"I cannot remain silent—I cannot live—while remnants of the Jewish people of Poland, of whom I am a representative, are being murdered."
Szmul Zygielbojm
SPEAKING OVER SURVIVORS
Young admirers of the Bund are the first to say they oppose Nazism, fascism, and white supremacy. They are the first to talk about the universal “lessons of the Holocaust,” as though the genocide of six million Jews was a lesson for its victims to learn. And yet, they’re also the first to speak over the overwhelming majority of Holocaust survivors when they drew their own conclusions after the horrors that they had experienced.
In the aftermath of the Holocaust, Zionism became a nearly unanimous position not just among Holocaust survivors, but for Jews around the world, even those formerly lukewarm towards the movement. In Displaced Persons camps, Jews advocated fervently for the British to open the gates to Palestine, and both the Harrison Report and later surveys found that the majority of survivors — 97% — wished to resettle in Palestine. When asked to list a second choice, thousands wrote “crematorium.”
This is not, as some antizionist Jews argue today, because trauma clouded the survivors’ judgment. Rather, it’s because the survivors had seen how their own friends and neighbors had turned on them. Most of all, it’s because the survivors had painfully realized that no one would come to their aid but themselves.
"Their desire to leave Germany is an urgent one...They want to be evacuated to Palestine now, just as other national groups are being repatriated to their homes...With respect to possible places of resettlement for those who may be stateless or who do not wish to return to their homes, Palestine is definitely and pre-eminently the first choice. Many now have relatives there, while others, having experienced intolerance and persecution in their homelands for years, feel that only in Palestine will they be welcomed and find peace and quiet and be given the opportunity to live and work."
Report of Earl G. Harrison, 1945
"Eretz Israel for the People of Israel!...We demand to open the gates of Palestine!"
signs posted at Feldafing DP camp, 1945
AND AS FOR THE BUND...
Bundist survivors, like all Holocaust survivors, drew painful conclusions from their own experiences in the Shoah. Today’s antizionist Jews speak over these survivors too.
For example, though the Bund had long opposed Jewish immigration to Palestine, the Bund in Displaced Persons camps reluctantly agreed with the Zionists that the British should open the doors of Palestine to Jewish refugees and campaigned in favor of a Jewish-Arab binational state. When a minority of Polish Jews tried to reestablish the Bund as it had once been, the new communist authorities promptly liquidated the party. The principle of doikeyt was cast aside precisely because the Holocaust and its aftermath were evidence enough that it had failed.
Many longtime Bundist activists and political organizers, particularly the younger generations, turned away from Bundism and embraced Zionism post-Holocaust, upon the realization that remaining in Europe and integrating into wider society was no longer possible. In the Displaced Persons camps, Jewish sovereignty came to be understood as the only viable path for Jewish survival.
Of course, some Bundists, like Marek Edelman, remained committed to their ideology to their dying day, but they were a small minority.
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