Trudy Gold
Jews, Revolutionaries and Troublemakers: Part 1

Trudy Gold - Jews, Revolutionaries and Troublemakers, Part 1

- Good evening, everyone. And it’s very difficult when our minds are so preoccupied with what is going on in the Jewish world at the moment. Because October the seventh is obviously, going to be one of the most seminal dates in Jewish history. And where we go from here, historians aren’t prophets. It’s very difficult to know what direction we will go in once we have got over the grief, and once we have, I’m not going to say healed, because we won’t heal, but I think we are perhaps be a lot sadder and a lot wiser. I was on the march in London this weekend and it was quite extraordinary. There was an incredible feeling of ruah, people coming together. And there were many non-Jews who marched with us. But I must admit, and I was guilty too, I was rather upset that we are so grateful. We seemed to be so grateful for non-Jews who came along to do the decent thing. And I think there’s going to be a lot of soul searching. But anyway, history never repeats itself, but people do. And I wanted to say that by way of intro, because obviously, this is a series about America. And we are beginning to look at how the floodgates opened because another seminal year was 1881 to 1882, when as a result of those appalling pogroms that I talked about last week, if you remember the assassination of Alexander II and the Consequent May Laws, which restricted Jewish life to an extraordinary extent. It was an absolute catalyst because it began many different movements that shaped Jewish history. And of course, 40% of the Jews decided to get out between 1881 and 1914, you’re going to see that 40% of the Jews of Eastern Europe, and I’ve said this to you before, you’ve had a look at the map of the Pale, and I hope it’s been sent to everyone’s screen because on the map I gave you, you can see the smaller towns and villages.

They came out, the majority went to America, but they brought with them many of the other ideas and movements that were formed in this period. So just as October the seventh, 2023 is a seminal year. 1881 to 1882 is also a seminal year. And how those events shaped Jewish destiny are with us to this day. And I think there’s still a question mark on the choices that people made. So what I’m going to do in this week and in the two sessions this week, I’m actually going to look at the various movements that were alive and well, and were born in the Russian Empire. And later on, we’re going to talk about how they manifested themselves on the shores of America. So that’s what I intend to do. And one of the most important movements was of course, the Bund, because what is going to be born in Eastern Europe is an authentic Jewish socialist movement. It’s interesting when you think about where did Jews most thrive? The majority of people will say that in the diaspora, Jews best thrive in a liberal democracy. Unfortunately, today, we are bereft of really liberal democracies and we are living in a period of extremism and extreme solutions. Certainly 1881, 1882 for the Jewish people led to extreme solutions. And one of the issues that you need to consider, and I’m sure many of you have thought about this often, is why is social justice such an important part of the Jewish psyche? One of the earliest Jewish socialists was a German, a man called Moses Hess.

He was a colleague of Karl Marx, and Karl Marx used to call him Rabbi Moses because for him, the social justice that became part of his socialist ideology came far more from the prophets of the Bible characters like Amos. Amos, who’s the earliest of the prophets. 3000 years ago, he was saying that Israel will be destroyed because we are corrupt, because we sell the needy for a pair of shoes, because we build two story houses for the rich and the kind of Bayshan as he called the women, loll on silk and cushions, and sell the needy for a pair of shoes. And of course, the Hebrew Bible, which the Christian world called the Old Testament, which in itself is a fascinating story, is full of these kind of illusions. So I would go as far to say that not socialism, but social justice is part of the Jewish world. And of course, Jews did not invent socialism. I think it’s very important to say that. It comes out of the encyclopaedias in France. And socialism first creeps into the Russian Empire in really the 1870s, 1880s. And it’s a doctrine that came from the rising middle class who were looking at the injustices of the world and wanted a more even society. It was pulled together of course, by the Renegade Jew, Karl Marx. I call him a renegade Jew. He was converted when he was eight years old to Christianity by his father, who very much took the Heiner position. Baptism is the passport to European civilization.

He was a very alienated character because in his writings, he obviously hated his Jewish origins. And if you think of the first line of the communist manifesto, workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose, but your chains. Many writers have said that only a Jew could be such an internationalist. And one of the reasons I’m bringing this up is that so many of the enemies of socialism in the old days, blamed the Jews for that what they called that disease. And what is certainly true is you find a disproportionate number of the leadership of all the socialist parties within the Jewish world. That is true. But I must state, socialism, communism was never the majority response. But we’re going to see manifestations of it in Eastern Europe, like the Bund, like revolution, like socialist Zionism, which are going to transport. The ideas of socialist Zionism, of course, some of them did go to Palestine, but many of them took those ideas to America. All you have to do is think people like Emma Goldman, like Golda Meir. And I’m going to do a special on those two incredible women. Where are these ideas founded? They’re founded in Eastern Europe. And of course, I’ve taken the town of Vilna because there was a huge, of course, Russia, remember, the zurfs were not freed until the 1860s. Just imagine that the zurfs tied to the land. Russia was a vast feudal empire, the largest land empire in the world. Now the zurfs are freed. Russia needs to compete with the west. By 1900, it’s the fifth industrial power in the world after Britain, France, Germany, and America.

Can you just imagine the Cuban misery, the huge industrial boom at the end of the 19th century, factories in lodge, Bialystok, Vilna, tanneries in Shaulen and in other Lithuanian towns, tobacco factories throughout Ukraine. And what is created is a large urban Jewish working tar class. They abandoned petty trading for fixed wages. Now by 1900, 40% of the Jews of the Pale of Settlement, remember what that means, Eastern Europe were working class. And not only that, it is Jewish bosses employing Jewish labour and the working conditions were deplorable. And after the made laws, which further restricted Jewish life, Jews are even more vulnerable to exploitation. Can we see the first slide, please? The next slide? And of course, this is the Bund that it’s going to be created. That’s a symbol of the Bund, the worker crying out. And the Bund is going to be very, very interesting because it’s also going to be about the language the Bund uses. Language itself is going to become a weapon. The internationalists are going to use Russian in the empire, the Marxists. The Bund are going to use Yiddish and they are going to be responsible for an absolute flowering of Yiddish culture, which is going to finish up in the lower East side. The Yiddish Theatre was incredibly important in America. And I know that David’s has been talking to you about Yiddish writers, and you’re going to talk about if you probably already have Abraham Kahan and the Daily Forward.

These ideas are all born in Eastern Europe. So can we see the next slide please? This is Jacob Lestschinsky. And in his paper, “The Jewish Worker,” this is what he wrote, destruction, poverty, privation, need, and hunger in the fullest sense of the world, a sweating system, shrunken chests, lifeless eyes, pale faces, sick and tubercular lungs. This is the picture of the Jewish street. These are the conditions under which the Jewish worker has to fight for social reforms and from the future ideal of socialism. So what we’re going to see happen with the Bund in Vilna, is there’s all these factors come together. So we are talking about a large Jewish working class. You are talking about the resentment of the Jewish poor against the Jewish rich. You are also talking about the Haskalah. Don’t forget that in the reign of Alexander II, and we’ve covered this, it appeared that at first, he was going to open Russia up and that led to the development of something called the Haskalah of the Enlightenment. And it led also to a society, both in St. Petersburg and Odesa for the promotion of culture amongst the Jews of Russia. And you had the beginnings of a secular education amongst the Jews of Russia. And also the wealthier Jews are sending their, because of course, with an industrial boom, you have wealthy Jews, you have desperately poor Jews, and you have a middle class. And because of the repression, particularly after the assassination of Alexander II, wealthier families are sending their Jewish young to the universities of Europe where they are gating an education in the ideas of Europe. So the secularism of the Haskalah and also the political activism and also the Hevres. If you think about towns like Vilna, I remember when we used to tour in Krakow. Fascinating, because the reason I’m mentioning Krakow is that because the monster, Frank liked the town, he never destroyed anything. So although the Jewish community were murdered, much of their property remained intact. So you can see the synagogue of the shoemaker, the synagogue of this, the synagogue of. And out of that came the Hevres, which later on, of course, are going to be trade unions. So this is an amalgam of reasons.

And don’t forget to add the Judaism of the prophets because that is in very, very, very important. Now let’s talk about language. 80% of the Jews of Eastern Europe said Yiddish was their native language. Only 8%, this is in 1900, had Hebrew as a mother tongue. And in 1920, believe it or not, after the independence of Poland, only 10% said that they had Polish first. So the lingo franca of the Jews of Eastern Europe is Yiddish. And the majority of the community, we’ve got the Haskalah, the Enlighteners, but that’s small, reformed Judaism hadn’t made hardly any inroads into the Pale. You would find it on the areas that were on the edge of Prussia and later Germany, and on the edge of the Habsburg Empire. That’s because of course, they were more liberal, there was far more of a Jewish emancipation. So these ideas creep in, but the bulk of the Jews of Eastern Europe are either Hasidic or Misnagdim. And the Hasids in the main have no truck with modernity at all. And tragically later on, they are going to be the largest number who are going to be lost or murdered, let’s use the right word during the Holocaust. But the Misnagdim, some of them now are going to think in a different way. Now think about how language is going to be become such a weapon. Because of course, today, and hopefully today, or if not next time, I’m going to be talking about socialist Zionism. What was the language of the Zionists? They said Yiddish is the language of the diaspora of a downgraded experience. There’s something wrong with the diaspora existence.

We have no control over our own destiny. So they pushed Hebrew. Whereas Yiddish, the Bund is going to say, Yiddish is the authentic language of the people. So anyway, this is very much the background. And ironically, something else that’s going to become very, very important, mainly through the Bund, you’re going to have YIVO in Vilna, which was the Institute for Jewish Studies. It was incredible. Library, publishing house, printing, and out of it, it’s going to come theatre and all sorts of sports clubs or based around Yiddish. So now what happens in Vilna, is in 1895, a group of Yeshiva students abandoned their studies. They think that in the world they’re living in this totally industrialised town with all the misery as put forward by Jacob Lestchinsky and others like him, what is going on? And they began to preach Marxism. Remember, Marxist ideas are creeping into Russia, and they began to preach, believe it or not, this bunch of Yeshiva students, a complete new creed, workers of the world, unite. We’ve got to come together to get rid of the ruling classes, et cetera. But it didn’t work. Why? Because Marxism is about complete assimilation. Later on in Russia, it’s fascinating because it was Jewish commissar led by Trotsky after the Soviet Revolution. We’re going to break down Jewish life in Russia, and yet it could never really be broken down. Never forget that Russia was one of the main sponsors of Zionism. And we’ll be talking about that later on. And it’s important to say this because of what happened on October the seventh. Russia sponsored Zionism, but then Golda Meir goes to visit as the first Israelian ambassador, and 50,000 young Jews came out to greet. And it made Stalin realise that you can’t get rid of Judaism, that whatever it means to be a Jew, you can’t get rid of it. And of course, that led to him turning. And that’s when you begin to see the real growth of left wing antisemitism, for example, Zionism, communism. Zionism, Trotskyism, Titoism, and rootless cosmopolitanism, which is gradually going to infest the left and then come back into the left in the west in the 60s.

This is terribly important because the ideas I’m talking to you about now have their roots, have their consequences today. So Marxism for the Jews, the authentic Jews of Vilna, because they might be oppressed, but they’re still synagogue goers, they still believe in the Jewish people and Jewish workers wanted to remain Jewish. They went to synagogue. Yiddish was their language. They have their cultural associations. And also, the Jewish workers rejected a bloody class revolution. By the end of 1896, a group of young Vilna intellectuals decided that if socialism was to become an effective mass movement, an independent Yiddish speaking labour group should be founded. And so, on October the seventh, 1897, which is another seminal year in Jewish history, and if you were in a class, you’d be shouting out. It’s the year of the first sign is Congress. Yes, of course it is. In that same year, 15 Jewish socialists meet in the back room of a blacksmith shop in Vilna. They were workers, only one wasn’t. His name was Arkadi Kremer. And what they came up with was the general Jewish labour Bund. They wanted to ally themselves with other Russian social democratic movements. They also believed passionately in gender equality. A third of the membership were women. Can we see a picture of Arkadi Kremer, please? Oh, sorry, I’ve gone wrong. Can we first see Arkadi Kremer? And then go back to the other one. Sorry about that. Now I’m going to give you a few biographies because I love biography. And out of biography, we understand, I think how people become what they are. So he’s born in a religious family, near Vilna. He went to school in Vilna. He studied in St. Petersburg and Riga at the Polytechnic.

He became very involved in radical student politics. He actually became attracted to Marxism. He’s arrested in 1889. He goes to prison and then into exile. Because the Okhrana, what they used to do was to send people to Siberia. Unfortunately, for them, it kind of became the university of radical ideas. He comes back to Vilna where he became involved in a circle of Jewish social Democrats. Now these are those who are supporting the whole of the Russian Revolution. And out of it, the Bund is later to emerge. He was very important. He established a Jewish study circle to create a mass movement of the Jewish people. He produced a pamphlet on agitation with the future leader of the Menshevik, Julius Martov, who was incredibly important in the Communist Revolution, more about that later. During his Vilna years, he met and married a woman called Matla Srednicki, who was the daughter of a wealthy Jewish merchant. She had studied dentistry also in radical circles. A lot of women were attracted to radical circles. A lot of it’s got to do with the fact that they could take their place as women. The same thing is going to be true of the Zionist socialist circles, because they demand it, particularly the second Aliyah. They demanded parity between men and women. She’s going to become a leading member of the Bund, and she’s going to survive her husband. And during the German occupation of Vilna in 41, she becomes one of the leaders of the Vilna ghetto. Obviously, she was an extraordinary woman. In the ghetto, she organised Yiddish reading circles. She organised libraries meetings. You’ve got to remember the human spirit. Even in hell, they went on with education. And all you have to do is those of you who have the time, have a look at the Oneg Shabbat archives from the Warsaw Ghetto. They are extraordinary.

And unfortunately, after the raising of the ghetto, she died in Sobibor. Now at the meeting, the first meeting of the Bund, this is what Kremer said, he wanted a general union of all Jewish socialist organisations will have as its goal, not only the struggle for general Russian political demands, it will have the special task of defending the special interests of the Jewish workers. And above all, carry on the struggle against discriminatory anti-Jewish laws. He’s one of the three members of the first committee. He was arrested and banished to Mogilev, where he worked with other political activists and was at the second Bund in 1898. He then escapes abroad, he goes to America. And in America, you see, he’s in America in 1901. Amongst the working classes in the lower East side, 90% of them are in the sweatshops. He starts organising Bundist activities. So he also went to Switzerland, to France. He became a French citizen. He worked with a French socialist party and was on the Foreign Affairs Committee. In 1903, he was at the conference in London. Now I’m going to talk about that later when I talk about revolution, because in 1903, the social Democratic Party aka the Communist Party, met in a church hall, not far from where I’m sitting in London. There were 55 people. Over half the members there were Jews. The Bunda was there.

The Bund wanted to fight with the revolution for autonomy. But whereas, the Marxists, who also divided into two groups, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, Bolsheviks means majority, Menshevik means minority. What they were fighting for was what for the soul of the Russian people really, because what the Bolsheviks wanted was to go for revolution. Now the Mensheviks wanted something more slow. Nearly all the Mensheviks were Jews. The Bund, of course, what the Bund wanted. But the Bolsheviks wanted after the revolution, we’re all one people now, but not the Bund. What the Bund always wanted was Jewish autonomy after the revolution. They believed that every group should have its national language. Every group within the empire like the Poles, the Latvians, the Lithuanians, they should have their own language, their own culture, but social justice for all. So with the Bund, it’s a completely different philosophy, and they are going to be thrown out by the revolution. Because do you see, it’s all the same souls. Over two thirds of the people who met in Latin church hall were born Jewish. And of course, that is why you’ve got this notion that all Jews are communists. As I said to you, the majority of Jews were liberals. However, a disproportionate number of those who created the revolution and the Bund, well, the Bund, they were all Jewish. But those who created the revolution were Jews. And not only is that going to stick, but also the notion that all Jews are capitalists. And it ties up then with that ghastly Russian monstrosity, the protocols of the elders of Zion, which of course, is coming out of this period. So it’s important to remember that. He gives up activism by 1908. In 1921, he returns to independent Lithuania where he taught mathematics. And he died in 1935. He was seen very much as a hero by the Bund.

And can we go back to Vladimir Medem please? Because it’s actually Medem who takes over the Bund. Now he’s interesting. After Arkadi Kremer was arrested and sent away. So he’s the son of a Russian medical officer who’d converted from Judaism. He’d become a Lutheran, which gave him far more opportunities. He went to the gymnasium in Minsk and then to Keele University. But he develops an interest in the Yiddish speaking proletariat and a huge interest in Jewish affairs, he turns to the Bund. And when he is arrested for Bundist activities by the Okhrana, he identifies himself as a Jew. In fact, he only learned Yiddish when he was 22 years old, because in the family he came from, his father was absolutely horrified. It was completely taboo. He was inspired by Marxist ideas. He joined the Minsk socialist. But because he was more interested in the world of the Jews, he’s drawn to the bomb Bund. And it’s with his influence, the Bund becomes totally anti assimilationist. Do you see, all these ideas are later going to be fought on the streets of New York? Do you assimilate? And where in America, of course, you’ll have another greater law, the law of the Open Society, but the ideas, that was a Bundist school in New York, by the way, many of these ideas, and of course, out of it’s going to come. Many of the great figures of the Yiddish theatre later, Yiddish film, Yiddish literature, the roots are in Eastern Europe. So he’s totally anti assimilationist. He’s also in favour of Jewish secularism. Do I have to ask you that question again?

Could someone like to define Jew for me? I was having this debate as we were marching on Sunday. I was talking to a non-Jewish woman, and she actually said to me, well, what does it mean to be a Jew? She said, I know what it means to be a Christian. It means I believe in Jesus. And you’re stymied actually, because the word Jew has so many different connotations. For him, he believed, he was totally anti assimilationist, but he wanted a Jewish culture, an authentic Jewish culture with an authentic Jewish language. He was anti-religious. He wanted Jewish secularism. He was also violently anti-Zionist because he believed that the Zionists were deserting ship. He wanted autonomy in the Empire post-revolution. And in April 1901, the Bund officially adopted an emotion rejecting the establishment of Jewish state and the Hebrew language. He thought that Zionism would divert from the revolution. He believed that why are they all going to Palestine. Ironically, many of those ideas finished up in New York as well. So, the problem with the Bund is, of course, it’s going to be expelled from the revolution. And as I said, it happens in London. And ironically, out of that meeting when the Bund was expelled, the Iskra board, Iskra means the spark. It’s the Russian social Democratic party. Let’s call it the Communist Party. It makes it easier. The board of their magazine called Iskra, means the Spark, was Lenin, Piekhanov, and Martov. And that’s established. The Bolsheviks, the majority are established. We go for violent revolution now.

And however, after the Soviet Revolution, what happens is, the Bund is illegal. If you think about it, it’s the Jews who stuck with the revolution, people like Trotsky, and I’m going to talk about that. They’re the ones who break. They don’t just break Judaism in Russia. They break the Bund. Ironically, in 1918, it was established as a separate party in independent Poland. And he becomes the leading theorist. However, he goes to America in 1921. He goes to New York and he’s the representative of the Bund in New York. And he dies there in 1925, 23, I beg your pardon. Now the Bund despised the Zionists as bourgeois utopians. Look at the next slide, please. We need to talk. That’s Hirsh Lekert. Because out of this, you’re going to be sent, I’m going to give you an example of some of the activists in the Bund. Now this is a character called Hirsh Lekert. He actually came from an illiterate background. He was active in the Bund from a young boy. And on May the 24th, 1900, he led a group of people in an attack on the police station in Vilnius. He was released, three other workers were arrested. He was then called in, he was exiled to Siberia. He escaped and he comes to Vilna. This is where people like Hirsh Lekert and they were only a minority in the Bund. They decided they were going to use revolutionary tactics to try and overthrow the evil czarist regime. Of course, you’re going to find many other groups. The communists themselves are going to use it. Stalin used to rob trains to finance Stalin, to finance communist activities. Can you use extreme measures for your cause? It’s still a very, very pertinent point, isn’t it? So he carried out an unsuccessful assassination attempt on the governor of Vilna, General Victor Von Val. And this particular character was responsible for incredible repression directed at the Vilnius workers and at the Bund in particular.

He was a terrible antisemite. He’d ordered the arrest and the flogging of a number of Jewish workers who had taken part in the May Day rally of 1902. Lekert and with a few other extreme Bundist, they planned his death. The plan fell through, and Lekert’s attempt with what was made with no preparation. As the governor was coming out of the city circus, he shot him twice in the leg and the arm. He was immediately arrested. He was transferred to the city’s prison. He was tried by a military court. He’s convicted. He’s sentenced to death. At his trial, despite the advice of a local rabbi, he refused to ask for forgiveness and gave an eloquent speech on the dignity of the Jewish worker. Now he becomes a folk hero. There are dramas in Yiddish and poems written about him. And they’re going to be staged in New York, in the Yiddish theatre. The most famous, the teacher Mira by a man called Adam Sutzkever, who was one of the greatest poets of the Holocaust. He wrote a poem about Hirsh Lekert. So I’m giving you, if you like, an extreme example. Can we go on? The same thing is true of Solomon Wittenberg. And he also was involved in an assassination attempt, actually on the czar. He was arrested. He was unsuccessful and he turned down. He was arrested and he is sentenced. He asked his mother whether he should- He was told if he converted, he could avoid a death sentence. And he said, his mother said to him, die as the Jew you are.

And this is what he wrote, his last testament. Of course, I don’t want to die. And to say I would willingly die would be a lie on my part. But this should not cast a shadow on my faith and the strength of my convictions. It cannot be otherwise. If in order for socialism to triumph, it is necessary that my blood be shed. If the transition from the present order to a better one is impossible, without stepping over our corpses, then let our blood be shed in redemption for the good of humanity. And that our blood will serve as a fertiliser of the soil on which the seed of socialism was sprout. That socialism will triumph. And that is my faith. He was hanged with his accomplice, attended on the entire Jewish school population of Vilna, had to attend his execution. Because by this time, the czars regime was unbelievably cruel. So important to remember the Bund, and we are going to be referring to the Bund more and more particularly when colleagues talk about Yiddish literature. And so, I want you to see it as an important point, but there’s another response to 1881. And that of course, is a Zionism. Can we see the next slide, please? And here you see, the daddy of them all, Leon Pinsker. Now we know that the first stirrings of Jewish nationalism appear in the late 60s and the late 70s. A small group of young Russian Jewish intellectuals in the Haskalah, are interested in ideas of nationalism. And soon various groups emerged that attempt to forge a synthesis between Zionism and socialism. And of course, this is going to lead to Hovevei Zion and Lovers of Zion. But Leon Pinsker is a fascinating character because he was almost a prophet.

His dates are 1821 to 1891. He was born in a southeast border town in Poland, but he was educated in Odesa. Now Odessa is particularly interesting because it was one of the freest cities in the Pale. It was a long way from central authority. It was a third Jewish, and it was a very, very interesting town with a wonderful conservatoire, a lot of art, a lot of music, a lot of literature. And he, in fact, his father was a great scholar. He, a Jewish scholar. He then studied law, but there were too many restrictions against Jews. But he had this huge sense of Jewish identity. He in fact, went on to study medicine and became a physician. Now in his early years, he believed in the Haskalah. He even was part of the group that founded Razvet, the Dawn, which is a Russian language newspaper for the Jews of Eastern Europe. He really believed that Russia was going to open its arms to the Jews. In that brief honeymoon period, in the reign of Alexander II. However, there was a pogrom in Odesa in 1871. It was Easter time. It was mainly stirred up out of economic rivalry. The street of the Greeks, the street of the Turks. The Jews were very important economically, but it made him change his mind. And then 1881 to 1882, the horrors of those pogroms. And now we’ve had the pogrom of the 7th of October. We know exactly what we mean by a pogrom. He lost faith in the enlightenment. He lost fate in humanism. And he didn’t believe it could defeat antisemitism. He thought it was too embedded. And of course, he publishes his very famous pamphlet, “Auto-emancipation.”

In German, he was a great linguist. He publishes it as a Mahnruf to the Jews of the West who were trying so hard to be part of German society, the Society of Vienna, the Society of France, Jews of the Jewish religion only. And he wrote this, To the living, the Jewish are corpse. To the native, a foreigner. To the homesteader, a vagrant. To the property class, a beggar. To the poor and exploiter, a millionaire. To the patriot, a man without a country for all a hated rival. Let me say that to you again, because basically, he is saying, a Jew is everything you hate wherever you come from. This is the pure scapegoat theory. Let me read it to you again. Because we are witnessing it again, are we not? To the living, the Jew is a corpse. To the native, a foreigner. To the homesteader, a vagrant. To a property class, a beggar. To the poor, an exploiter and a millionaire. To the patriot, a man without a country. For all, a hated rival. And it was he who coined the phrase judophobia, which I’ve told you about many, many times. He said, judophobia is a psychic aberration. It is a 2000 year old disease. It is incurable. And those of you who are crossing the sea are fooling yourselves because it will follow you. He be grew to believe that the only answer was to create a different kind of Jew. And ironically, the Russian authorities approved the establishment of the society for the support of Jewish farmers and artisans in Syria and Palestine, because the Russians didn’t want a Jewish problem anymore. And he becomes one of the founders of Hovevei Zion, The Lovers of Zion. It was first founded in 1881 and it constituted a group in Kativik in 1884.

And the Russians approve it in 1889. And this is what also he said, this is another extract from auto emancipation. The civil and political emancipation of the Jew is not sufficient to raise them in the estimation of the peoples. The proper and only remedy would be the creation of a Jewish nationality of people living on its own soil. The emancipation of a nation amongst nations by the acquisition of a home of their own. Let me say that to you again. The emancipation of a nation amongst nations, by the acquisition of a home of their own. We should not persuade ourselves that humanity and enlightenment will ever be radical remedies for the malady of our people. Now the Bund was totally against them, these ideas. Because the Bund believed that if they could be part of the revolution, and a small group of them were using revolutionary manners matters, even though they were expelled, they still fought in the revolution of 1905. What we want is autonomy. What is wrong with the diaspora? We are a people in the diaspora. Again, it’s about what does it mean to be a Jew. To Pinsker, who was steeped by the way, in Hebrew literature as well through his father. For him, it’s got to be only in our own soil. Now important to remember, they don’t have huge adherence at this. These people do not have huge adherence at this stage. It’s a small movement and it’s going to be a socialist movement. And some of them, these ideas are going to follow them to America as well.

It’s a fascinating notion. How you have this terrible period in Jewish history between 1881 and 1914, and of course, various waves of immigration depending on what’s going on in with the Czarist government, internal immigration and immigration out, and what are the movements that can save the Jewish people? We are still asking the same question. What is the riddle of the Jew? Will we ever be able to solve it? We are that strange people that walks the world, are we not? And of course, there were other fascinating characters who were also involved. I’m going to show you their faces now. Peretz Smolenskin. He was one of the Founders of HaSha- Can we go on to the next slide please? Peretz Smolenskin. He founded HaShachar. He was in Odesa. A lot of these characters come out of the society for the promotion of culture. HaShachar was very, very important. It becomes a vehicle for many of the other Ziontists, people like Judah Leib Gordon, Moshe Lilienblum. So it’s the centre of his life, HaShachar. And he creates an important circle of writers who are going to become part of Hebrew culture just as the Bund is going to contribute to Yiddish culture. And his home became a meeting place. And also he was head of the alliance in Romania. His works are a realistic appraisal of the Jewish world as he saw it. Although, he mocked the Hasids and the religious in general, he mocked the darkness of that world. He also mocked the assimilationists of Berlin and Vienna, who threatened the unity of the Jewish people and it was the whole people he wanted to reform. And he realised after the pogroms that the Maskilim must rework their ideas.

And that is why so many of them became part of the Zionist movement. The term was not coined till 1891, by the way. And this is what he said, the problem of the Haskalah was not simply to awaken a desire for learning and knowledge amongst our people. Its basic intention was to imitate the Gentiles, the Haskalah of Berlin. He’s talking about the German Enlightenment rested on this. We should abandon our own traditions to disdain our own manners and ideas, and to conduct ourselves both at home and in the synagogue, in institutions of others as a reward for such an achievement. So these wise leaders and teachers assured us, our children are our children’s children, or those children’s children will be accepted as equals. Our nationhood was a serious stumbling block. An existing Jewish national patriotism would be a bar to assimilation. They succeeded in the nationalising jury and in teaching us to mimic ape like, the world of the gentiles. But their dream did not materialise. Look, he dies in 1885 by which time, modern racial antisemitism was an active movement. He said the Haskalah has failed. Another character was of course, Moshe Lilienblum. Let’s have a look at him. They all worked together, these characters. He was born in Lithuania. He came from a poor background. His maternal grandfather was a teacher. And already by the age of 13, he’s ordering or he’s a very bright man, bright boy. He’s ordering or he’s organising study centres. He married 15 as so many of them did. He married a wealthy girl, so he was to go to Yeshiva. But his father-in-law lost his money, so he had to work. He’d read the writings of some of the Maskilim. He became dissatisfied with traditional Talmudic study.

And he hated the ignorance he store around him. And he wanted to go to university, but the pogrom stopped it. And this is what he said. In 1877, he wrote, I thought I cannot live as a human being if I lack high culture and formal education. At the end of 1881, I was inspired by a different ideal and it became a different man. They all believed in assimilation or becoming part of the gentile world. It fails. I became convinced that it was not a lack of high culture that was the cause of our tragedy for aliens we are and aliens, we shall remain. Now their lies before me, a short path to the salvation of our people and it is nationhood. So important to remember that there are are these individuals who, and there are only a few of them who are coming up with a new creed. And the other one, I must mention, is of course, Ahad Ha'am, Asher Zvi Ginsburg. Can we have a look at him? Please read biographies of these characters. They’re all absolutely fascinating. He came from a very pious Hasidic background. His family were very close to the Rebbe of Sadigura. He had an extraordinary education. He wasn’t even allowed by his, he was a brilliant boy. So many of these characters were illui. He wasn’t even allowed to learn the figures of the Russian alphabet because it could lead to heresy. But he taught himself by the aged eight to read signs of shops in his little town.

By his adolescence, he’s already a very renowned scholar of the Talmud and its literature. He goes to Hader. His father was wealthy, he leased an estate. He took private tutors. He locked himself in his room and he got hold of books and he studied. He began to study all the ideas of the enlightenment. He read Maimonides, he read mediaeval philosophy. And what I’m talking about the enlightenment within the Jewish world. And eventually, he begins to want more. And he studies the German, he has wonderful use of language. He studies Russian. He studies German. And in the end, his family moved in Odesa. Of course, I’m shortcutting this, all these characters are so wonderful. In Odesa, he was influenced by Pinsker and some of the other characters. And he began to come up with his own ideas. And of course, Theodore Hertzler has erupted on the scene. And he was weary of political Zionism. And in his first article, he hailed the spiritual value of the Hebrew in Renaissance within the Zionist movement. You see, what he said, he had a different philosophy. He said that he did not believe every Jew would go and live in Palestine. What he believed in that Palestine should become a great cultural and spiritual centre that it should, if you like, bring out the best in what it meant to be a Jew. And that light will radiate the diaspora and then fulfil the prophecy of desire and radiate to the whole world. He created a group called B'nai Moshe, which on the seventh of Adar, which was the traditional birth date of Moses. And he becomes the leader.

B'nai Moshe was an elitist group who had to be morally and intellectually and spiritually sound. I don’t know who decides that. He said that, although his aim is to return the Jews to their spiritual homeland, there has to be prior preparation. Without the ethical and moral content, it won’t work. And he eventually does settle in Palestine. He’s extraordinary character. He was in London between 1908 and 1922 because he had to earn a living. And he was in fact the Russian, the representative of the Wissotzky Tea Company. He had an incredible life and he had a huge impact on Chaim Weizmann. He became his guru. He moves to Tel Aviv in 1922. He was a member of the city council. He was on the board of the Hebrew University. And in fact, the street he lived in was named for him. So an incredible character. So what I’m trying to do at this stage, is bring out the whole gamut of ideas that of 1880, which were really set on fire by 1881. I think we’ve finished this part of the talk. With the next slide, if you don’t mind, which is a May Day oration. Okay. Let me just find that May Day oration. Here we go. Yeah. Because this is of course, is going to lead to international revolution. Next time, I’m going to be talking about the Jews who went the other path. We, Jews repudiate our national holidays and fantasies which are useless for human society. We link ourselves with the armies of socialism and adopt their holidays. Our holidays which we have inherited from our ancestors, will vanish together with the old system. The Torah of socialism will not descend from heaven of Sinai in Thunder and Lightning and the Messiah will not come riding on a white horse.

These characters character and what we’re going to see from the internationalists, they believed that if they create a just new world, all the divisions within people would disappear and with it, would disappear antisemitism. So what we’ve begun to look at now, are those movements. Don’t forget that communism and socialism is again, going to hit the Jews in the face. In America, when, at the time of the post-war, when Russia again becomes the enemy. Post-Second World War and Huac, and all the witch hunts. Anyway, I’m going to stop there. Let’s have a look at the comments.

Q&A and Comments:

This is from Monty. And I’d like your comments on this because it’s quite controversial, the information I’m giving you today. My father abandoned his yeshiva studies in Panovits and joined the Bund. He never spoke about it to me, from a cousin, the son of my father’s sister. I heard about his anti Hasidic activities and the reason they sent him off to South Africa. He subscribed to Yiddish newspapers from South America and the USA, all his life in South Africa. Oh, that’s so interesting, Monty.

This is from Rose. Being a Jew, we’re a tribe and a religion braided like a challah. Oh, my mother would’ve loved that. This is from Mitzi. After World War I and the disillusion of the czars, Austria-Hungarian Empires, nationalism became a popular social movement. Zionism was certainly influenced by this movement that emphasised the language and culture of unified people. Yes, of course. This is the point to the Zionist. Very good point, Mitzi. Zionism. Look, Hebrew is the language of our glorious past when we walked proud in the land of Israel. Yiddish is the language of the Inglorious diaspora, they thought. This is real war between the Bundist and the Zionists.

Q: Did the Bund ever reconcile with Zionism? Some members must have converted.

A: David, they never reconciled. But yes, some did move over, and some moved over the other way.

Mitzi, unfortunately, nationalism is out, especially for the woke.

Q: How was a major Russian city like Odesa, one third Jewish? It’s true that Odesa was a relatively new city under Catherine and Jews were allowed to develop the city.

A: Yes, you’ve got it in one, Shelly. Odesa was acquired by Catherine the Great. It was a Turkish fort. She won it. And her boyfriend, Potemkin, developed the thing. She bought in a Frenchman, Delisle, to build an incredible city and they needed traders. So Jews were allowed into Odesa. Yes, they became a third of the city.

Roberta, what is your view of the Bund? Interesting. That I’ve agreed in 1955 at the Montreal Third World Conference to create a Jewish state. They stipulated that Israel should foster peace with the Arabs. This required halting, territorial expansion, and resolving the Palestinian refugee problem. Yeah. Yeah. That’s very interesting to bring into the argument. Michael, Zev Jabotinsky was born in Odesa in 1880. Yes, I know he was, Michael. I have to admit, he is one of my heroes. But Trotsky was born just outside Odesa in 1879. And I’m going to say something though, I hope went upset you too much. They were quite alike in some ways. They were both genius. They were both brilliant orators. They both wanted to solve the problem of the world. The problem was that Jabotinsky, look, Trotsky wanted to save the world, but Jabotinsky wanted to save the Jews. I wish they had been in debate. I cannot believe that these two vibrants didn’t know each other. There’s no record of it. Can you just imagine what a debate between those two would’ve been? And don’t forget that Trotsky, by the end of his life, is rethinking his position on the Jews. There’s that terrible, terrible time when he actually writes this letter in 1939 where he said, the world is is divided up into the countries that won’t let the Jews in, and the countries that won’t let the Jews live.

Thank you, Selena. My grandfather came to London from the Ukraine as a Bundist, but he was also a Zionist. He came in 1913. Yeah, it’s interesting. Look, I had these great uncles. There were four of them. One was a Bundist, one was a communist, one was a Zionist. And the communist went off to fight in the Spanish Civil War and came back completely disillusioned and became a capitalist and kept the Bundist and kept the Zionist. What can I tell you? Jewish families. The Rebbe from Crown Heights said, we are people destined to always be alone. We are not alone. There are a lot of good people with us. I realise that on the march, we’ve just had this extraordinary history. But as I’ve said to you many times, I believe in the spiritual destiny of the Jewish people. I really do. Anyway, thank you for your attention. So goodnight, everyone.