Nationalism and Transnationalism >> Jews

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The "Jewish Question"
  • Starting in the 19th century, the “Jewish Question” became an issue for politicians primarily in western and central Europe.
  • The various Zionist movements believed that the Jews should be an independent nation.
  • The Bund believed that the Jews should be accepted as a nation within other nations, and remain as a Diaspora.
What is Zionism?
The Jewish Labor Bund began as a socialist political party made up of Jewish workers in Eastern Europe.  It hoped to unite Jews within the Russian Empire and work toward a democratic socialist Russia, and for Jews to be granted legal minority status.  It was a secular organization, and firmly anti-Zionist.  The Bund was in many ways transnationalist, and wanted to remain a Diaspora.
Political Zionism
  • Stressed political action as a means of achieving goals
  • Felt that political rights in Palestine were necessary for full independence
  • Primarily a western and central European movement, as well as being largely middle-class
  • Theodor Herzl is considered, if not the father of Political Zionism, then at least one of its most important figures
The Dreyfus Affair
In 1894, French artillery officer Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason against France, stripped of his rank, and sent to a penal colony in French Guiana.  He was also of Jewish descent.  What made this event remarkable was that Dreyfus was innocent.  The French army staged a cover-up, even to the point of forging documents.  When the public found out, France became bitterly divided.  Many Jews found the scandal to be very clear evidence of widespread European anti-Semitism.
Theodor Herzl
Born in 1860, Theodor Herzl was a Hungarian Jew who worked as a Paris correspondent for a newspaper and reported on the Dreyfus Affair.  His coverage of the situation and his observation of anti-Semitic rallies convinced him that a separate state was necessary for the Jewish people.  His book, Der Judenstaat, became the basis for modern political Zionism, and Herzl would become a founding father of the World Zionist Organization.
Labor Zionism
  • Believed that an independent nation could only be created by the efforts of working class Jews settling in Palestine
  • Primarily an Eastern European movement
  • Labor Zionism began as a combination of Socialism and Zionism
  • Involved Jews living and working in agricultural communities called kibbutzim; the Kibbutz movement would eventually branch off from (but remain rooted in) Labor Zionism
The Bund
 The Jewish Labor Bund began as a socialist political party made up of Jewish workers in Eastern Europe.  It hoped to unite Jews within the Russian Empire and work toward a democratic socialist Russia, and for Jews to be granted legal minority status.  It was a secular organization, and firmly anti-Zionist.  The Bund was in many ways transnationalist, and wanted to remain a Diaspora.

Bundist self-defense group, Odessa, January 1905

Bundists exiled to Sibera, Siberia, 1904
Zionism vs. The Bund
 

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Zionists and Bundists in America
  • The first official American Zionist organization was the Zionist Organization of America, founded in 1897
  • Many Bundists immigrated to America and became involved in early American unions, as well as American Socialism, and Anarchism