The International Jewish Labor Bund was a
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
-based international
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...
ish socialist organization, based on the legacy of the
General Jewish Labour Bund
The General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia ( yi, אַלגעמײנער ייִדישער אַרבעטער־בונד אין ליטע, פּױלן און רוסלאַנד , translit=Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeter-bund in Lite, Poy ...
founded in the
Russian empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
in 1897 and the
Polish Bund that was active in the
interwar years
In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the First World War to the beginning of the Second World War. The interwar period was relativel ...
. The IJLB is composed by local
Bundist groups around the world. It was an "associated organisation" of the
Socialist International
The Socialist International (SI) is a political international or worldwide organisation of political parties which seek to establish democratic socialism. It consists mostly of socialist and labour-oriented political parties and organisations. ...
, similar in status to the
World Labour Zionist Movement
Poale Zion (also spelled Poalei Tziyon or Poaley Syjon, meaning "Workers of Zion") was a movement of Marxist–Zionist Jewish workers founded in various cities of Poland, Europe and the Russian Empire in about the turn of the 20th century after ...
or the
International League of Religious Socialists
The International League of Religious Socialists is an umbrella organization of religious socialist movements in political parties throughout the world. Founded in the 1920s, it has member groups in 20 countries totaling 200,000 members. For most ...
. The World Coordinating Council/Committee of the Jewish Labor Bund was dissolved in New York in the mid-2000s., although local Bundist groups or groups inspired by the Jewish Labor Bund still exist in France, the UK, Australia and the State of Israel.
History
The Polish Bund had established a representation in New York in 1941, where it began publishing ''Unser Tsait''. In 1947, a conference was held in
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
at which the World Coordinating Committee of Bundist and Affiliated Socialist Jewish Organizations was founded (i.e. the IJLB). Emmanuel Novogrodski was the secretary of the IJLB until 1961. Novgrodski had been the secretary of the Polish Bund and participated in setting up its New York representation. Early 1948, the Polish Bund withdrew from the World Coordinating Committee.
The IJLB was admitted with an observer statute on the June 1947 Zürich Conference of the reconstituted
Socialist International
The Socialist International (SI) is a political international or worldwide organisation of political parties which seek to establish democratic socialism. It consists mostly of socialist and labour-oriented political parties and organisations. ...
and as an "associated organization" at the Frankfurt founding Congress of the new Socialist International in 1951.
In 1997 commemorative events were organized to celebrate the
100th anniversary of the Bund in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
,
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
,
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
, Paris and
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
, where the chairwoman of the Belgian chapter, herself 100 years old, was present.
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.
# 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.
Leadership
Presidents
*
Motl Zelmanowicz (died 2010)
General secretaries
*
Emanuel Nowogrodzki (1947–1961)
*
Emanuel Scherer
Emanuel Scherer (1901 – 5 May 1977) was a Polish politician.
Life
Emanuel Scherer graduated from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, and became active in the Bund youth movement there. Later he moved to Warsaw, where he continued to be an a ...
(1961–1977)
*
Benjamin Nadel
Benjamin ( he, ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel (Jacob's thir ...
(1992-2004)
Executives of the World Coordinating Committee
Executive of the World Coordinating Committee in 1957:
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)
Bund Congresses
#1947 (May 4-10) Brussels
#1948 (October 1-8) New York
#1955 (April 8–15) Montreal
#1965 (April 19-25) New York
#1972 New York
#1985 New York
Affiliated groups
Bund groups continue to meet in the United Kingdom (
Jewish Socialists' Group
The Jewish Socialists' Group (JSG) is a Jewish socialist collective in Britain, formed in the 1970s.
History
JSG was founded in Manchester/Liverpool in 1974-1977 as a lobby group campaigning against the fascist National Front and for the left ...
), France (
Centre Medem – Arbeiter Ring
Center or centre may refer to:
Mathematics
*Center (geometry), the middle of an object
* Center (algebra), used in various contexts
** Center (group theory)
** Center (ring theory)
* Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricit ...
), Denmark, Canada, USA, Australia (
Jewish Labour Bund, Inc
The Jewish Labour Bund ( yi, ייִדישער אַרבעטער בונד, translit=Yidisher Arbeter Bund), more commonly known as the Jewish Labour Bund Melbourne ( yi, ייִדישער אַרבעטער בונד מעלבורן, translit=Yidisher ...
and
S.K.I.F.), Argentina, Uruguay and Israel (
Arbeter-ring in Yisroel – Brith Haavoda
The Arbeter-ring in Yisroel – Brith Haavoda ( - lit., Worker's Circle in Israel – Labor Alliance) was the Israeli branch of the International Jewish Labor Bund, launched in 1951 and disbanded in 2019.Shani Littman,An anti-Zionist Movement That ...
).
From 1959–1978 the Bund operated a summer youth camp called
Camp Hemshekh
Camp Hemshekh ( yi, המשך; "continuation" Literally: Camp "Continuation") was a Jewish summer camp in the United States that was founded in 1959 by Holocaust survivors who were active in the Jewish Labour Bund, a Jewish, socialist workers' par ...
in the
Catskills
The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas cl ...
region of New York State. The surviving youth movement of the Bund,
S.K.I.F., also ran summer camps in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
and in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
. Today,
S.K.I.F. operates in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, and in France since 1963 as the
Secular Club of Jewish Children
Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...
(french: Club laïque de l'Enfance juive, CLEJ).
Press
The IJLB published in New York a monthly journal in
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
, ''Unser Tsait''. It also published the ''Jewish Labor Bund Bulletin'' and the ''Bulletin of the Jewish Youth Movement''. Its Australian and Israeli chapters have their own magazines, ''Unser Gedank'' and ''
Lebns Fragn''.
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 Un Bilder, 1897-1957''.
References
{{Source-attribution, {{cite book , title=Jewish Labor Bund 1897-1957 , year=1958 , publisher=International Jewish Labor Bund , location=New York , url=https://www.marxists.org/subject/jewish/jewish-labor-bund-58.pdf , oclc=948867081 , ref=none , page=20
External links
Jewish Labor Bund Bulletin1947-1953
Jewish Labor Bund Melbourne
Further reading
*''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
Bundism
Jewish anti-Zionist organizations
Socialist International
Organizations established in 1947
Organizations based in New York City
1947 establishments in New York (state)