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Beyond Internal Paradigms New Perspectives on the Jewish Labour Bund Beyond Internal Paradigms New Perspectives on the Jewish Labour Bund. Warsaw: Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw, 31.05.2012-03.06.2012. Reviewed by Brendan McGeever Published on H-Soz-u-Kult (January, 2013) On May 31 2012, a group of international The workshop took the form of a series of the‐ scholars gathered at the Jewish Historical Insti‐ matic panels of papers by junior scholars and tute in Warsaw for a four day workshop on the graduate students, with commentaries given by history of the Jewish Labour Bund. This was the senior scholars in the feld. In addition, each of first academic gathering of Bund scholars for ff‐ the senior scholars gave an evening public lec‐ teen years, the previous event being the 1997 con‐ ture, and at these sessions, which attracted wide ference which marked the Bund’s centennial. audiences, the debate and discussion was scholar‐ The workshop brought together pioneering ly, impassioned and engaging. In his opening key‐ scholars of the feld such as Ezra Mendelsohn, note address, EZRA MENDELSOHN (Jerusalem) Jack Jacobs, Gertrud Pickhan and Feliks Tych, but discussed the Bund ‘then and now’, noting that for also a number of graduate students and junior some scholars of his own generation – notably scholars. The event, much like the Bund itself, was those working within the labour Zionist tradition transnational in its scope with participants com‐ – the Bund were a source of inspiration for the ing from places afar as USA, Argentina, Australia, building of socialism in Israel. Mendelsohn ob‐ Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Poland served however that today the Bund are attract‐ and Scotland. Over the course of the four days, it ing interest as a tradition of anti-Zionist critique. was plainly evident that the overall mood of the In the second public lecture, JACK JACOBS (New workshop was strongly influenced by its setting in York) offered an analysis of the remarkable rise of the Jewish Historical Institute, which is situated in the Bund in the interwar years in Vilna, where by the outskirts of the former Warsaw Ghetto. The 1939 they had become the city’s largest Jewish markings on the foor of the main entrance to the party. This interpretation led to an absorbing ex‐ Institute (a result of the fames of the Warsaw change between Jacobs and Mendelsohn, which ghetto uprising) were a poignant reminder of the essentially pivoted around the question of how events of the mid-twentieth century which so pro‐ we ought to interpret the Bundist notion of foundly shaped the trajectory of the Bund both in doikeyt in light of the mass extermination of Jews Poland and in migration. Indeed, until 1939 the in the Shoah. board of the Bund would meet regularly in a The workshop also witnessed a public screen‐ building not too far from the Institute, and this ing of Eran Torbiner’s remarkable 2011 flm Bun‐ spatial proximity to the history of the workshop’s da’im, which charts the lives and politics of the subject matter brought a particularly moving dy‐ last generation of Bundists in Israel. The screen‐ namic to the proceedings. ing was an unquestionably moving affair, not H-Net Reviews least because it took place in the very city in Mayoraz showed that migration to Switzerland which many of the flm’s activists were born. Tor‐ was a crucial means for Bundist revolutionaries biner himself was also present at the workshop to consolidate and build a support base for the (along with his colleague Yaad Biran), and both struggle against tsarism. took part in an impassioned debate after the In addition to this globalised perspective, the screening about the nature of Bundism and its re‐ workshop also demonstrated the significance of lationship to Zionism and the state of Israel in localised case studies for the history of the Bund. particular. This was most clearly argued in AGNIESZKA The core essence of the workshop however, WIERZCHOLSKA’S (Berlin) examination of Bund- lay in the six panels of papers given by graduate PPS relations in the city of Tarnow in the interwar students and junior scholars. A feature of these years. Whereas the historiography of Bund-PPS papers was a pioneering transnational focus relations has tended to emphasise 1936-1939 as which captured the Bund in migration in a global the critical period, Wierzcholska’s regional case context. FRANK WOLFF’S (Osnabruck) contribu‐ study showed that joint Bund-PPS socialist clubs tion, for example, conceptualised the Bund as a were in operation in Tarnow as early as 1933. transnational social movement, showing how Moreover, Wierzcholska demonstrated that Bundists literally took doykeyt wherever they whereas the Bund was generally weak in Galicia, went. However, Wolff also demonstrated the ex‐ it was very strong in the case of Tarnow. In a cri‐ tent to which Bundist practices in contexts such as tique of traditional approaches to Jewish-Polish Buenos Aires and New York differed sharply and relations, Wierzcholska also showed that both the were very much dependent on the localised con‐ Bund and the PPS strongly challenged anti‐ texts and the networks which were established. semitism in Tarnow throughout most of the 1930s. DAVID SLUCKI (Melbourne) continued the theme Traditional interpretations were also chal‐ of the Bund as a transnational phenomenon, lenged in RONI GECHTMAN’S (Nova Scotia) over‐ showing in his paper how Bundists managed to view of shifts in the historiography of the Bund in survive in migration after 1945. Countering the Israeli scholarship. Gechtman’s central argument narrative that the Bund was simply destroyed in was that Israeli historians have tended to over‐ the war, Slucki drew upon the examples of Mel‐ play some issues – principally nationalism and the bourne, New York, Israel and France to show that survival of a Jewish nation – at the expense of oth‐ the post war story of the Bund is also one of sur‐ ers which were central to Bundist activists them‐ vival. What bound Bundists, he argued, was a selves – organisational problems within the all- shared history, memory, language and a transhis‐ Russian Marxist movement, the co-existence of torical sense of belonging. Despite this, Slucki, like minorities, a non-territorial solution to the nation‐ Wolff, also stressed the importance of the local al question, the struggle against tsarism etc. This contexts and the extent to which they influenced touched on a thread which ran throughout the the practices of Bundists in migration in the post discussions at the workshop: namely, whether the war period. The workshop’s transnational focus history of the Bund is essentially part of a unique‐ was further developed in MARTYNA RUSINIAK- ly ‘Jewish’ history or, rather, whether the Bund KARWAT’s (Warsaw) exploration of the relation‐ ought to be situated in the larger frame of non- ships between Bundists in Poland and the United Jewish and Jewish histories. States after 1945, and also by SANDRINE MAY‐ The workshop also offered a number of pa‐ ORAZ (Basel), whose paper analysed the activity pers which looked at hitherto underexplored ar‐ of the Bund in Switzerland between 1897 and eas. For example, MAGDALENA KOZLOWSKA 1917. Drawing on her work in the Swiss archives, 2 H-Net Reviews (Krakow) examined the various practices within gued de Bollardiere, is evidenced by the JLC’s in‐ the Medem Sanatorium in Miedzeszyn, focussing heritance of the self-help tradition, its opposition on the sanatorium’s internal organisational struc‐ to communism, its sense of social justice, and of tures as well as the social and cultural practices course its commitment to building Yiddish cul‐ which children and patients took part in. Similar‐ ture. ly, YUU NISHIMURA’S (Kyoto) paper explored Finally, the workshop also had a biographical Bundist educational activities in the interwar pe‐ focus, with MICHAL TREBACZ (Lodz) discussing riod, looking in particular at the role played by Israel Lichtenstein, the leader of the Lodz Bund, Bundists in the Central Jewish School Organisa‐ and JORDANA DE BLOEME (Toronto) who ex‐ tion (know as the Tsicho after its Yiddish initials). plored the concept of “international yiddishism” Nishimura’s paper discussed various “school com‐ in the life and work of Khayim Shloyme Kazdan, munities” such as teachers (and in particular fe‐ the Bundist leader of the secular Yiddish school male teachers), parents, pupils and the distinctive movement. In an intriguing paper, SILVIA HANS‐ set of core educational values embodied in the ac‐ MAN (Buenos Aires) made use of Bundist Anna tivities of these groups. Both Kozlowska and Rozental’s autobiography to explore the role of Nishimura showed, in drawing particular atten‐ women in the Bund. Hansman was initially sched‐ tion to children’s committees and other forms of uled to be part of a panel focussing specifically on self government in Bundist educational institu‐ the participation of women and representations tions, just how central children and youth were to of gender in the Bund, but unfortunately this pan‐ Bundism in general. In the discussion following el had to be withdrawn. these papers, Gertrund Pickhan (Freie University) Overall, the workshop brought together vari‐ suggested that future researchers ought to take se‐ ous strands in current Bund related research, in‐ riously the study of emotions and concepts such cluding the local, national and transnational; the as ‘belonging’ as central forming components of centre and periphery; the personal and biographi‐ Bundist educational culture. cal. What is more, it demonstrated that there ex‐ Two papers also explored the history of the ists a new generation of researchers who are Bund’s involvement in the Jewish Labour Commit‐ bringing to bear new research perspectives and tee (JLC). RACHEL FEINMARK (Chicago) showed methodologies to the study of the Bund.
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