The Jewish Bund: An Overlooked Alternative to Zionism and Its Enduring Legacy

Introduction

Growing up in the United States with a Jewish mother, I didn’t encounter any negative views about Israel until my teenage years, when I was confronted with the truth about Zionism. In my family, Israel was always spoken of with admiration. Whether I was talking to my mom, grandma, grandpa, or uncle, Israel was deeply embedded in our conversations.

Beyond my family’s views, pro-Zionist rhetoric insidiously wormed its way into me, as it does for many in the United States. Phrases like “Israel is the only pillar of democracy in the Middle East” and “Israel is the safest place for Jews,” along with other narratives about Western values, have formed a constant backdrop to my life. Anti-Zionism and Socialism are both considered somewhat taboo topics in Western society. This is likely why I didn’t come across the Jewish Socialist Bund until much later. As Decolonize Palestine explains in their article, Zionism often presents democratic “window dressing” that hides underlying inequalities.

The Jewish Bund, commonly known as the Bund, was a socialist organization that operated within the Russian Empire. It strongly opposed Zionism and argued that without an end to Jewish oppression, any socialist revolution would be meaningless for Jewish workers. They held anti-Zionist views over 100 years ago. What are the connections between the current events in Gaza and the West Bank today? What lessons can we learn from the Bund as anti-Zionists? What political insights can we gain from the Bund?

History and Formation of the Bund

Proto-Bund

In the Pale of Settlement, a territory within czarist Russia where Jews were confined, a radical socialist spark ignited.

In 1897, thirteen members of Jewish radical organizations from across the Russian Empire met in Vilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania). To avoid suspicion, they met from September 25 to September 27, 1897, which coincided with the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. Secrecy was paramount; none of the thirteen members were ever in the same room simultaneously. Though secular, socialist, and anti-Zionist, the General Jewish Worker’s Bund remained deeply committed to the protection of the Jewish community.

In his essay The Ideals of the Jewish Labor Bund Have Outlived Nazi Genocide, David Rosenberg explores the Bund’s ideals and the lessons they can teach us today. Rosenberg first learned about the Bund in the context of its 1903 argument at the “London Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) for the right to autonomously agitate in Yiddish among Jewish workers.” This debate ultimately divided the party into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.

Many prominent figures saw the Jewish Bund as separatists or nationalists, while others viewed it as irrelevant for opposing Zionism, particularly during the 1930s. However, Rosenberg admired the courage of the Bund’s secret 1897 meeting. Ironically, this occurred the same year Theodor Herzl launched the Zionist movement. Rosenberg describes the Bund’s opposition to Zionism as a struggle between internationalism vs. nationalism, integration vs. isolation, optimism vs. pessimism, and class struggle vs. class collaboration.

Rosenberg’s assessment reveals a Bund that is an overlooked movement and a crucial player in today’s anti-Zionist struggle.

The Bund’s Resistance to Zionism

The Bund maintained its principled opposition to Zionism and instead advocated for a bi-national arrangement that would provide self-determination for both Jews and Palestinians. In 1948, the year of Israel’s founding and the Nakba, the Bund gained support in Sweden. However, Zionists also gained influence in the country. Swedish police, working with Zionist organizations, began an oppressive campaign against Bund members who refused to fight in Palestine. Many Bundists were placed in displaced persons camps, where they were subject to mistreatment and coercion.

In September 1948, ultraright Zionists assassinated Folke Bernadotte, the Swedish UN mediator on Palestine who had earlier been responsible for the “white buses” that transported many Jewish prisoners in Germany to Sweden in the final stages of the war, among them several Bundists. The Bund in Sweden were among the first contributors to the fund for peace and humanity established in his name. But Zionist emissaries flooded into Sweden, too, dominating the Jewish street and strongly influencing the wider Jewish community. The saddest part of the book describes the denial of communal facilities for Bund meetings by mainstream Jewish institutions, and the boycotting and marginalization of Bundist survivors in Sweden, after everything they had been through.

The Jewish Bund didn’t last much longer after that. As Zionism swept through Europe and Israel became a state, anti-Zionist voices were increasingly suppressed. After the Holocaust, Zionists persecuted Bund members, forcing them out of jobs and even imprisoning them in camps. Similar tactics of oppression continue in the West Bank today.

As evidenced by Human Rights Watch:

On the basis of its research, Human Rights Watch concludes that the Israeli government has demonstrated an intent to maintain the domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians across Israel and the OPT. In the OPT, including East Jerusalem, that intent has been coupled with systematic oppression of Palestinians and inhumane acts committed against them. When these three elements occur together, they amount to the crime of apartheid.

Conclusion

It’s 2024, and Zionism continues to cause incalculable harm to the Palestinian people. My heart bleeds for Palestine, but I also mourn the generational trauma and cyclical abuse afflicting the people of Israel. Zionism has not made the world a safer place for Jews; in many ways, it has perpetuated their insecurity. That’s a subject for another time, but the persecution of the Bund in Sweden demonstrates that Zionism hasn’t safeguarded Jewish lives.

As I sit in my bedroom, writing this blog, I identify with the Bund. Even though I only discovered their movement three days ago, I feel deeply connected to their struggle. Like many anti-Zionists, I’ve been labeled a “self-hating Jew” or an “anti-Semite” for rejecting Zionism. I’m sure the Bundists faced similar accusations. Zionism teaches us to feel ashamed for questioning it. I felt that shame creep in for a brief moment—but I won’t anymore.

No one is free until Palestine is free.

References

• Rosenberg, David. “The Ideals of the Jewish Labor Bund Have Outlived Nazi Genocide.” Jacobin, 2022.
• Rosenburg, David. “The Ideals of the Jewish Labour Bund Have Outlived Nazi Genocide.” Jewish Voice for Labour, 2022.
• Meyers, Joshua. “The Bund Was Far from Perfect. It Still Matters to Jewish History.” History News Network, 2019.
• Decolonize Palestine. “Myth: Israel is a Democracy.” Decolonize Palestine, 2023.
• Mondoweiss. “The Myth of Israeli Democracy Died in Gaza.” Mondoweiss, 2023.
• Parmeter, Ian. “Israel’s Democracy: A Systemic Problem.” Lowy Institute, 2023.
• Shakir, Omar. “A Threshold Crossed.” Human Rights Watch, 2023.
• Amnesty International. “Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians.” Amnesty International, 2022.