Palestine solidarity and Jewish opposition to Zionism

Yitzhak Luden stands in the Yiddish community center(photo: Alon Aviram) 14th November 2012

First session on the Bund with Tony Lerman and David Rosenberg

Reem Kilani

Member of the audience contributing to debate

Panel for last session

 Jews 4 Boycotting Israeli Goods AGM & National Meeting

I have often found myself thinking, as I have another AGM or meeting to attend, that I’m doing it more out of a sense of duty than because I really want to be there.  And then having gone I wished I hadn’t!

 

Saturday was different and was one of the most enjoyable meetings I’ve been to for a long time.  It was the second annual conference that J-Big has organised since it was founded in early 2010 and it was packed to the rafters, with people standing.   Nearly a 100 people attended and the conference was filmed throughout.  A short AGM was also held in the morning.  In its 3 years, J-Big has made an impact far above its (increasing numbers) and is in constant demand to send speakers or attend a picket/demonstration with our banner.   Truly J-Big has come of age.

Naomi introduces Antony Lerman and David Rosenberg

Anti-Semites such as Gilad Atzmon have tried to portray us as being only concerned with anti-Semitism and Jews.  We are according him, only in the Palestine solidarity movement as gatekeepers to keep the non-Jews in line!  Yesterday would have been a sore disappointment to Atzmon and his declining band of supporters.  Yes we are opposed to all manifestations of anti-Semitism, and all other forms of racism within the Palestine solidarity movement, but our main priority is symbolised by our slogan ‘Koshering the Boycott’.  And to nail another lie, there were a number of non-Jewish people who attended as equal participants.

The film 'Bundayim' produced by Eran Torbiner

The Conference started off, nearly on time, with a showing of the film Bundayim¸ a film on the Israeli remnants of the The Bund.  After the holocaust, some of the remnants of the Bund, the General Jewish Workers Union of Russia, Lithuania and Poland, emigrated to Israel and mainly to Tel Aviv.  There they established a library and a meeting place.  Moshe Machover told me that when Matzpen was first established in 1962 they were welcomed and held their first meeting in the Bund premises.

Bund leader in Israel

The film was, for me, an incredibly sad and moving film.  Here we saw the remnants of the mass organisation of the Jewish working class in Poland, murdered in the holocaust, holding on to their socialist principles without conceding anything to Zionism.  Those who formed the Israeli section of the Bund were either anti-Zionists or non-Zionists and Eran Torbiner, who produced the film, is a member of Israel’s Boycott from Within.

The film showed a group of about 60 people who were steadily growing older and dying off, with very few young people joining them.  Zionist nationalism, the idea that the Jewish worker has more in common with  the Jewish capitalist and boss, the fundamental idea of the Zionist concept of the ‘Jewish people’ was antithetical to the idea of socialism.  The Bund in Poland had organised autonomously, because of the particular oppression suffered by Polish Jews, but they also worked closely with the Polish Socialist Party to tackle the common enemy.  The Bund in Israel kept the memory of socialism and international solidarity alive.

Today the Zionists friends are those such as Michal Kaminiski MEP for the Law & Justice Party whose was opposed to Poland apologising for the pogrom by Poles in Jedwabne in 1941 when up to 600 Jews were burn alive in their homes and synagogue.

Afterwards there was a panel consisting of Tony Lerman, founder of the Institute of Jewish Policy Research, former member of the academic Jewish establishment and recent author of the Making and Unmaking of a Zionist. http://azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/review-making-and-unmaking-of-zionist.html and David Rosenberg, Secretary and founder member of the Jewish Socialists Group.

Audience discussion in first plenary

Tony gave a fascinating account of his own upbringing in the ‘socialist’ Zionist group Habonim-Dror and his own growing disillusionment with Zionism.  His recent book 'The Making and Unmaking of a Zionist' has been pilloried by the Jewish Establishment and its treatment in the Jewish Chronicle, where a hack Zionist Professor Hochauser, was wheeled out to make a personal attack on Lerman whilst ignoring the contents of the book itself, was par for the course.

David Rosenberg gave the background to the Bund in Poland describing how the Zionists and anti-Semites were agreed that Jews did not belong in the country where they had been born.  How in the fight against anti-Semitism, the Zionist groups were entirely missing with the exception of Left Poalei Zion, a group which I would characterise as non-Zionist.

Mad Mel P in all her glory

David described how, in the last municipal elections in 1938 before the Nazi invasion, out of 20 Jewish Council in Warsaw, the Bund won 17 (he said 16 but everything I’ve read says 17) compared to just one seat for the Zionists.  The Zionists and the Orthodox Jewish parties had simply become irrelevant as the Nazi menace loomed.

After a break there was a further panel discussion arising out of the production of a new 4 page pamphlet, Zionism and Antisemitism: Racist Political Twins which detailed how, ever since the Zionist movement was formed, it has worked hand-in-glove with anti-Semites.  Michael Deas of the Boycott National Committee was ill but his place as Chair of the discussion was taken by Michael Kalmanovitch of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Organisation.

John Rose, author of Myths of Zionism, speaking - Michael Kamanovitch of IJAN to his left

2nd plenary with speaker from Anarchists Against the Wall

The first speaker was John Rose, an academic, member of the SWP and author of The Myths of Zionism, a book which unpicks the Zionist myths used to perpetuate the idea that Israeli Jews confront eternal Arab hatred and Israel therefore has the right to "defend itself" by any means.  It is an important book because ever since its foundation, the Israeli state has used the ‘existentialist’ threat of the surrounding Arab states in order to maintain the fiction that it is perpetually under attack and to justify its permanent state of emergency.

Speaker from Anarchists Against the Wall

The next speaker was an Israeli speaker from Anarchists Against the Wall who described most the increasingly racist nature of Israeli society and the vital role that anti-Zionist and sympathetic Israelis play in trying to halt the demolitions.

Sue Blackwell speaking

Sue Blackwell, from BRICUP (British Committee for the Universities of Palestine) spoke about the attack by Zionists in her trade union, UCU and in particular the most recent employment tribunal proceedings for race discrimination initiated by a disaffected Zionist – Ronnie Fraser.  The tribunal  proceedings we were told, by Prof. Jonathan Rosenhead of Bricup, had been transcribed by a note-taker and Sue  described how the proceedings didn’t quite follow the reporting of the Jewish Chronicle.  For example one of the examples Sue gave of the terrible ‘anti-Semitism’ that Fraser gave was the fact that at one UCU conference, no one applauded his speech!  Truly on a par with the  pogroms of Kishinev.  Perhaps he hadn’t thought of the more obvious explanation.

Sue also explained that from its very inception, many Jewish academics had given their support to the campaign to boycott Israeli universities and how, when Fraser launched his tribunal proceedings, represented by Anthony Julius of Mishcon de Reya (whose main claim to fame was that he was the solicitor for the Princess Dianne trust fund – from which he trousered some £2m for professional services).

The financing of Fraser's litigation is murky.  Anthony Julius is, apparently, representing Fraser pro bono.  But a figure of £50,000 was also mentioned as having been paid to Engage, the 'left-wing' Zionists who were created to oppose the academic boycott.  According to Fraser this originated from the "Friends" of the various Israeli universities and was channeled through the Fair Play Campaign
Group, which was set up by the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council to fight the academic boycott.  It is possible that all that money came from donors in the UK and only went through bank accounts in the UK.  David Hirsh in his evidence denied that the money came via the Fair Play Campaign Group, though he did not deny the figure of 50K - he estimated it was spread
over 3 years. 

I spoke last and began by noting that when I had ‘come out’ as an anti-Zionist at the tender age of 16, there had been no role models.  There were virtually no Jewish anti-Zionists around and none that I knew.  Today, as this conference demonstrated, Jews in increasing numbers were rejecting Zionism and the racism and chauvinism it stood for.

Tony Greenstein - speaking in the last session

I paid tribute to Les Levidow, to an enthusiastic round of applause, for having taken on the thankless task of producing our pamphlet.  It should be invaluable.  Next time you are accused of ‘anti-Semitism’ you can cite Israel’s first Minister of Justice, Pinhas Rosenbluth, that Palestine is an ‘Institute for the Fumigation of Jewish Vermin’.  Only the Nazis and their ilk referred to Jews as ‘vermin’ but the Zionists shared the anti-Semitic idea that Jews were strangers in other peoples’ lands and had developed ‘asocial’ characteristics as a result of their ‘exile’.  I also pointed out that the main friends of Zionism today were the establishment and right-wing.  It is no accident that the English Defence League marches with Israeli flags, that Nick Griffin calls the BNP the most pro-Israeli political party and that most European far-right or fascist parties support Israel.  As we know, Andres Breivik, the fascist mass murderer from Norway, was a devoted supporter of Zionism and Israel.
In the evening we had a cabaret act from Melanie Philips aka our very own Debora Fink and then the noted Palestinian musician Reem Kilani performed as did other Palestinian artists.

Audience members dancing to the band

I also cited, in an earlier contribution, the fact that the Zionists, when faced with a choice of saving Jews or building a Jewish state had without hesitation opted for the latter.  Even Shabtai Teveth, the official biographer of David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister, had noted his complete indifference and worse to the holocaust.  He wrote in The Burning Ground 1886-1948 p. 851 that:

'If there was a line in Ben-Gurion's mind between the beneficial disaster and an all-destroying catastrophe, it must have been a very fine one.'  Ben-Gurion's whole philosophy had been to turn the disaster of the holocaust to 'positive' effect by erecting a 'Jewish' state.  Rescue was the last thing on his mind.  And if it be though that the first Prime Minister and Chair of the Jewish Agency was an aberration I referred to the President of the Zionist Organisation and first  President of the Israeli state, Chaim Weizmann, who remarked of William Evans-Gordon, who founded the British Brothers League, an anti-Semitic group dedicated to keeping the Jewish refugees from the pogroms out of Britain, that the Jews were sometimes hard on him!  [Trial & Error, Autobiography of Chaim Weizmann).

I also touched on the 'Zionisation' of the holocaust.  How according to Zionist ideologues like Anita Shapira, the 'Princess of Zionism', Jewish history could only be understood on 'national' ground.  So only Zionist historians based in Israel could understand the true meaning of the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis, even though it had taken place in Europe not Palestine.

Reem Kilani - the noted Palestinian musician - was abled to come at the last minute and perform

Leila contributes to debate

 Despite its ritual accusations of 'anti-Semitism' Zionism is and  remains a Jewish mirror image of anti-Semitism.

Moshe Machover, a founder of Matzpen, gave a very moving and inspiring tribute to his late comrade Akiva Orr, who died on February 9th 2013.  Akiva who had been born in Berlin in 1931 and come to Palestine in 1934, was the child on non-Zionist parents.  Akiva had served in the Israeli navy during the 1948 war but see little action but he had later joined the Merchant Navy and been one of the leaders of the 1950-1 Seaman's Strike in Israel when the Israeli navy was deployed to defeat the strikers.  Their enemy was Histadrut, which owned both the main shipping line (Zim) and was also the workers' trade union.  The strikers were castigated as no different from the fedayeen (guerillas).  Akiva became a noted speaker and authored 'The UnJewish State'.

Leila and Mad Mel P

In the evening we had a variety of entertainers including Mad Mel Phillips aka Deborah Fink, a Palestinian band and a guess appearance from Reem Kilani, the noted Palestinian singer songwriter.

Entertainment in the evening

Entertainment was provided in the evening by a band

A number of us retired at 7.30 to a nearby restaurant after a thoroughly enjoyable day.  On Sunday there was a second conference, organised by Glynn Secker, with people like Ilan Pappe and Moshe Machover speaking.

Tony Greenstein

The Bund – the Mass Jewish anti-Zionist Party in Poland

As the Socialist Film Festival gears up to show Eran Torbiner’s film Bundayim next year and interest continues to grow in an organisation which, in Poland, massively outpolled the Zionists in the last Jewish Council elections, gaining 17 out of 20 seats in Warsaw to the Zionists’ one.   The Bund was a socialist and anti-Zionist party and its growth was a reflection of the fact that as the terrors of anti-Semitism grew, so Zionism offered no solution to the Jewish masses apart from the ‘dream’ of a Jewish State.  Hence when the Nazis invaded, the Zionist leaders – Begin, Hartglass, Gruenbaum all fled – whilst the Bund leaders stayed with their people.  Below is an article from the radical +972 Blog in Israel.
 
Tony Greenstein

Remember the Jewish Labor Bund?

The Bund was a Jewish socialist, revolutionary party in Eastern Europe dedicated to class struggle. It is all but forgotten in modern day Israel, but a few members are still around to tell the story.

Bundayim - Eran Torbiner's film of the Bund in Israel

By Alon Aviram

A piano played and a middle-aged woman stood in the middle of the room singing classical Yiddish songs to an attentive, seated audience of 30 or so old men and women. Every so often the music was interrupted by a hoarse laugh or some remark blurted out in Yiddish by a member of the audience. Heavy red velvet curtains blocked out the now largely gentrified old Tel Aviv neighborhood of Nahalat Binyamin. At a social gathering every fortnight, members of this Yiddish community center escape the realities of 21st century Israeli life and return to a largely bygone Yiddish-speaking era.

Yitzhak Luden stands in the Yiddish community center
(photo: Alon Aviram) 14th November 2012

As the music finished and old friends said their goodbyes, journalist Yitzhak Luden, 90, one of the last surviving members of the Jewish Labor Bund in Israel, led me down a stairwell to a Yiddish library. “The others are here for just cultural and social reasons, they’re all too young to have been members of the Bund,” shrugged Yitzhak. As he pulled out tattered leather-bound books, he began to tell his story, and that of the Jewish Labor Bund. “One hundred and fifteen years ago, the Zionists held their first congress in a casino in Basel. The Bundists on the other hand, had their first meeting in the attic of a farm near Vilnius a month before. The Zionists were bourgeois from the start!” said Yitzhak.

The Bund was a Jewish socialist, revolutionary party, dedicated to class struggle and with an internationalist agenda. It played a significant role in the Russian revolutionary period. Similarly to Zionism, it was born in the wake of widespread anti-Semitism and pogroms across Europe. While the Zionist movement turned to emigration and the founding of a Jewish nation-state as a solution, Bundism argued that a Jewish state was a form of escapism which would only replicate existing class inequalities.

Yitzhak reconciled his position as an anti-Zionist living in Israel. “I came to Israel in 1948 not as a Zionist, but as someone fleeing war-torn Europe. Poland denied Bundists the right to organize, and the few Bundists who came made clear our political position in support of Palestinians, and for a one state solution.” The Bund in 1929 for example, defended the Palestinian riots as an anti-colonial uprising, rather than as anti-Semitic, as had been depicted by Zionists.

Even before the establishment of the Bund, a Yiddish article printed in Russia in 1887 wrote that those who think that “once the Jews have their own country they will be able freely to develop social ideas and cooperate with other peoples” forget that “the origin of nations is betrayal, robbery and murder”. The Bund would later echo this political position as an anti-Zionist organization with deep roots in the Jewish working class and intelligentsia across Eastern Europe.

“The religious Jews had traditionally organized Jewish communities. The Bund came out against both this and Zionism. It began to organize worker cooperatives and the social lives of many Jews. I was at first a member of the Bundist youth organization, SKIF. And some of my friends from SKIF who stayed in Warsaw later fought in the Ghetto resistance,” said Yitzhak.

Members of the Jewish Bund with bodies of their comrades killed in Odessa during the Russian revolution of 1905
(photo: Wikimedia Commons, PD-US)

The Bund repeatedly mobilized self-defense militias which managed to successfully thwart a number of pogroms, orchestrated general strikes, built a network of cultural organizations, and later became a considerable electoral force in Poland. As it turned to electoral politics in its later years, it obtained 40 percent of the Jewish vote in council elections across large cities in Poland in 1938. “That same year in Warsaw, the Bund took 17 out of 20 council seats won by Jewish parties in the Municipal elections” Yitzhak said proudly.

Decades earlier, Vladimir Medem, a Russian Jew, became one of the Bund’s most prominent theorists. He rejected the Zionist aspiration of establishing a Jewish nation-state. Medem did not however dismiss the value of national autonomy, but sought a version which was not territorially defined. Instead, the Bund called for the creation of a ‘state of nationalities’ rather than a nation-state.

The Jewish Labor Bund’s vision of national cultural autonomy was an early form of radical multiculturalism. It opposed both those who argued in favor of forced assimilation and those who called for nationalist separation. It envisaged a socialist society that would allow communities to freely conduct their own cultural affairs while ensuring that they remained connected economically and politically in one territory. Although the political conclusions outlined by the Bund were informed by life in late 19th and early 20th century-Russia, their commitment to essentially a one state model, of bi or multi-nationalism shares similarities with certain debates regarding the future of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories today.

Despite the Bund’s influential role in early 20th century Eastern European Jewish life, it seems that they are solely remembered by specialist historians or nostalgic left-wingers. “No one imagined that the Nazis would do what they did”, said Yitzhak as he spoke of the Holocaust. As a result of the Bund’s insistence that Jews should stay and fight for socialism rather than emigrate, many were murdered by the Nazis, and to a lesser extent also by the Stalinists. Decades later, it  appears that Zionism, the prevailing dominant ideology among Jewry, has played a part in forgetting, or at least in not remembering, the narrative of its pre World War II rival. Yitzhak, himself the survivor of a Russian gulag, said “we see this all around us. Before my wife met me, she had never heard of the Bund.”