The Secret History Hidden By Zionists | Molly Crabapple | TMR
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Summary
Takeaways
- ❖The Jewish Labor Bund, founded in 1897, advocated for Jewish liberation through democratic socialism and cultural autonomy within Eastern Europe, directly opposing Zionism.
- ❖Zionism, championed by figures like Theodore Herzl, sought a separate Jewish state, initially indifferent to its location, viewing Europe as irredeemably racist.
- ❖The Bund believed in 'zokite' – the right for Jews to live free, dignified lives in their homeland, practicing their culture and language within a multicultural socialist society.
- ❖Zionist movements, including 'socialist' ones, often collaborated with anti-Semitic regimes and engaged in discriminatory practices against Palestinians, which the Bund found ethically reprehensible.
- ❖The Bund played a significant role in organizing Jewish workers, fighting for labor rights, and establishing extensive mutual aid networks, schools, and militias in inter-war Poland.
- ❖Despite its peak popularity in Poland before WWII, the Bund's leadership was targeted by both the Nazis and the Soviets, and its legacy was actively suppressed by Zionism post-Holocaust.
- ❖The story of Arthur Zaggel Boy, a Bundist councilman who committed suicide in protest of the world's indifference to the Holocaust, highlights the movement's desperate efforts to warn the world.
- ❖The historical suppression of the Bund's narrative by Zionism aimed to portray diaspora Jews as weak and to present Zionism as the sole path to Jewish salvation.
Insights
1The Bund's Vision of Jewish Liberation in Eastern Europe
The Jewish Labor Bund, founded in 1897, proposed a radical alternative to Zionism: achieving Jewish liberation and dignity within Eastern Europe through democratic socialism. They believed in overthrowing the Tsarist regime, establishing a socialist society, and fighting for the right of Jews to live full, free lives in their ancestral lands, with cultural autonomy (Yiddish language, literature, theater) and without assimilation.
The Bund wanted to overthrow the Tsar, establish democratic socialism and also fight for the right of Jews to live beautiful, free and dignified lives in Eastern Europe where they had lived a thousand years. () They believed in a country where everyone is allowed to practice their own culture, to be served in their own language, but that it's a democratic socialist country. ()
2Zionism's Origins and Opposition to Assimilation
Political Zionism, spearheaded by Theodore Herzl in 1897, arose from the belief that European racism was insurmountable, even in 'enlightened' countries like France (as seen in the Dreyfus trial). Herzl concluded that Jews could not assimilate and needed their own state, regardless of location, and was willing to use any means to achieve it.
Theodore Herzel... thought all Jews should convert to Christianity. But then he saw the Drifus trial... that in sophisticated liberated France, this guy who had done everything to assimilate should be reduced to just being a Jew... that was enough to convince Theodore Herzel that Europe was just racist... You just had to get out because Europe was racist. ()
3Zionist Collaboration with Anti-Semitic Regimes
In the 1930s, as Polish nationalism became increasingly anti-Jewish, Zionist groups made 'messed up deals' with the Polish government. This government, which was funding anti-Jewish terrorist youth groups and advocating for the expulsion of Jews to Madagascar, provided weapons, money, and military training to Zionist paramilitaries (Haganah, Irgun, Stern Gang) operating in Palestine. The Bund found this collaboration ethically bankrupt.
The same Polish government that is funding these terrorist youth paramilitaries is giving weapons, money, and military training to the three Zionist paramilitaries that are in Palestine and that are murdering Palestinians during the great Arab revolt of 1936 through 1939. ()
4The Bund's Role in the Holocaust and its Suppression
The Bund actively resisted the Nazi occupation, forming an underground, establishing schools and a Red Cross, and creating militias for self-defense. They were instrumental in exposing the truth of the Holocaust to the world, smuggling reports to London. In the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Bundists united with Zionist socialists and communists to form the Jewish Combat Organization. Post-WWII, the Bund was suppressed by communist dictatorships in Poland and marginalized by Zionist movements in displaced persons camps, which coerced survivors into moving to Palestine, effectively erasing the Bund's political power.
The Bund immediately reconstitutes as an underground... they create a militia that tries to organize like basic self-defense... Boond writes the first major Jewish report of the Holocaust and has it smuggled to London... Bundists, Zionist socialists, as you said, and communists unite and they form a group called the Jewish Combat Organization, which will be the primary group in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising... The Zionist movement very quickly takes control of the camp administrations... and they use this power to convince but also to coersse people into signing up to go to Palestine. (, , )
Bottom Line
Zionist 'socialism' in Palestine, exemplified by groups like the Histadrut, was inherently discriminatory, designed to exclude Palestinians from the labor market, mirroring the anti-Jewish discrimination faced by Jews in Poland.
This reveals a foundational hypocrisy within early Zionist 'socialist' movements, demonstrating that their 'socialism' was often a tool for ethnonationalist segregation rather than universal liberation, challenging the perception of early Israel as purely socialist.
Understanding this historical precedent can inform contemporary critiques of 'socialist' or 'progressive' movements that implicitly or explicitly exclude certain ethnic or racial groups, promoting vigilance against such contradictions.
The Polish government's post-WWII actions included murdering a thousand Jews and rejecting Jewish refugees from displaced persons camps, despite claiming to represent democracy and human rights, which deeply undermined the Bund's belief in human solidarity.
This highlights the persistent and widespread nature of anti-Semitism even after the Holocaust, and how the betrayal of 'democratic' governments contributed to the decline of universalist Jewish movements like the Bund, creating a vacuum that ethnonationalist Zionism exploited.
This serves as a cautionary tale about the fragility of solidarity and the dangers of state-backed racism, even in post-conflict societies, urging vigilance against similar patterns in modern refugee crises and political rhetoric.
Key Concepts
Multicultural, Multi-racial Democratic Socialism
The Bund's core belief that people of diverse cultures and races can achieve liberation and build a just society together, without needing to assimilate or separate, by fighting for shared socialist goals while maintaining distinct cultural identities. This contrasts with ethnonationalist approaches.
Human Solidarity Across Difference
The principle that collective liberation requires different oppressed groups to unite and fight together against common oppressors, rather than seeking individual or group-specific solutions that might harm other communities. The Bund saw itself as part of a broader working-class movement, not isolated.
Lessons
- Read Molly Crabapple's book, 'Here where We Live is Our Country, the Story of the Jewish Bund,' to gain a deeper understanding of this suppressed history and its relevance.
- Challenge the conflation of Judaism with Zionism by exploring and promoting alternative histories of Jewish resistance and identity, particularly those rooted in anti-ethnonationalism and solidarity.
- Advocate for democratic socialist principles and human solidarity across different groups, drawing inspiration from the Bund's commitment to fighting for a just world for all, not just one's own group.
Notable Moments
Arthur Zaggel Boy, a Bundist city councilman, publicly begged Warsaw Jews not to enter the ghetto, then later, as a delegate to the Polish government in exile in London, committed suicide in protest of the world's indifference to the Holocaust.
This act of ultimate protest underscores the Bund's desperate efforts to save Jewish lives and expose the genocide, highlighting the tragic failure of international powers to intervene and the profound moral courage of Bundist leaders.
Molly Crabapple's great-grandfather, Samuel Rothport, a post-impressionist painter, created a 'memory painting' titled 'It good the Bundist' showing a young woman throwing a rock through a window, which sparked Crabapple's discovery of the Jewish Labor Bund.
This personal anecdote illustrates how individual family histories can serve as doorways to uncovering suppressed collective histories, emphasizing the importance of personal connection in historical research and the enduring legacy of radical movements.
Quotes
"The Boond had an idea that to me is so profoundly ethical that it sounds almost obvious and it's something that I honestly see being lived out in practice every day in New York City, which is that you can have a multicultural, multi-racial democratic socialism."
"The worst thing that Zionism did was the mass murder that they wrought against Palestinians, against Lebanese, against the entire region. But another crime that they did was that they stole our history. They colonized our history..."
"You do not have to reject being a Jew because you reject the disgusting ideology of Zionism. You have a history and you have a heritage to be proud of. And I want to invite you to embrace that."
Q&A
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