A new book rediscovers the Jewish non-Zionist tradition of fighting antisemitism, writes Rob Ferguson
Protest against child slavery in New York in 1909 with slogans in Yiddish and English
(Picture: Library of Congress)
By Rob Ferguson
Tuesday 30 January 2024
SOCALIST WORKER Issue 2890
News
News
The Radical Jewish Tradition—revolutionaries, resistance fighters and firebrands by Donny Gluckstein and Janey Stone is published at a critical juncture.
It comes as millions react in horror and rage at Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
It has rarely been more important to restate the Jewish radical alternative to Zionism and reject a conflation between Jewish identity and Israel.
The Jewish radical tradition has been largely written out of the record both by establishment historians and by Zionists determined to expunge the role of Jewish anti-Zionists.
Gluckstein and Stone bring together great threads of the radical Jewish tradition from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, up to the Holocaust.
They have provided an invaluable resource for socialists and anti-imperialists today.
The book dispels the narrative of Jewish history as one of “eternal victims”, used by Western governments and Zionists to justify support for Israel.
The authors root the rise of modern antisemitism in the development of capitalism, not as simply the latest episode of ‘the longest hatred”.
This is important because, as the authors show, for the Jewish radicals, the fight against antisemitism was inseparable from the fight for socialism.
The authors note how Jews sought to embrace equality and assimilation into wider society during the nineteenth century.
Legal restrictions on Jews were dismantled but they found themselves facing rising “racial” antisemitism and violence born of a capitalist system wracked by crises and state rivalry. In response, a radical tradition sought to wage a common struggle with non-Jews against a capitalist order.
But those promoting a Zionist ideology sought an accommodation with capitalism, and a place in the world imperialist order on the basis of Jews as a “nation”.
The book highlights the pre-First World War and inter‑war Jewish experience, spanning Russia, Poland, New York to London’s East End, where Jews were highly prominent in all the major revolutionary currents.
During the Russian Revolution of 1905, Leon Trotsky, a Jew, was elected president of the Petrograd workers’ council—and 11 of its 35 executive members were Jewish.
In London’s East End and in New York, radical Jewish movements mobilised through working class struggles.
They were also in solidarity with the victims of the pogroms in Tsarist Russia and against the rising fascist movement of the interwar years.
In New York, Jews also organised with black people against racism.
An important new book
This was often in the face of opposition from leaders of the Jewish establishment and reformist leaderships.
An important chapter deals with Poland and particularly the anti-Zionist Jewish Labour Bund, which organised workers’ struggles and mobilised militias to defend Jewish people.
Another section addresses the heroic resistance of Jewish fighters in the ghettos and concentration camps of Europe during the Holocaust.
Today, Zionist historians emphasise collaboration on the part of non-Jewish populations in Europe, such as Poland, and participation in the Holocaust.
On the other hand, right wing regimes in Poland, Hungary and elsewhere seek to erase the historical record of complicity.
New forces are now emerging, fighting towards the renewal of a radical, anti-Zionist politics.
They seek common cause with Muslims, Palestinians and non-Jews against Islamophobia, antisemitism, settler colonialism and imperialism.
This is evident amongst a layer of young Jewish radicals in the United States and on a lesser scale, in a growing Jewish bloc on London’s pro-Palestine demonstrations.
The Radical Jewish Tradition offers an important contribution to the debates taking place in these movements.
Crucially, this book provides a much-needed counter to the Zionist narratives peddled unremittingly by warmongers and the media. Donny Gluckstein and Janey Stone signpost a tradition of which our movement can be proud and from which we have so much to learn.The Radical Jewish Tradition: by Donny Gluckstein and Janey Stone, £12 plus postage. Available from bookmarksbookshop.co.uk
Actually, what we said in 1947 in the chapter on Zionism in our pamphlet The Racial Problem could fit the bill (emphasis added):
Quote:
Chapter VI : Zionism We cannot deal with the problem of anti-semitism without also discussing Zionism. Again, we can only deal with it on broad, general lines, because of obvious limitations of space.Although the beginning of what we know today as the Zionist movement took place towards the end of the last century, it is only in recent years that the movement has gained any great strength. Today, there are over 550,000 Jews living in Palestine; yet in 1919 there were only some 60,000. In 1919, they constituted 9% of the population of Palestine; today they constitute 33%. The early movement was weak and poorly organised. Most Jews were quite indifferent to the movement; certainly they did not wish to go to Palestine. Of the two million Jews who emigrated from Russia, Austria, and Roumania between the years 1881 and 1908, over one and a-half millions went to the United States, 300,000 went to Western Europe, and only 26,000 went to Palestine. Even among those people who did emigrate to Palestine in the early days, there was little of the active, colonising spirit. Most of the younger element preferred to try their fortunes elsewhere.Since the end of the first World War, conditions have changed. Anti-semitism has become stronger than ever before, with obvious results. First of all, those Jews in countries where anti-semitism was most active tried to emigrate to countries where they would be less badly treated. Secondly, as the tide of anti-semitism rose higher and higher, so did many Jews become more and more interested in the idea of a “National Home”, where, as they thought, they could be together and be free once and for all from the hostility of people around them.Although all manner of places had been suggested for this “National Home”, including British East Africa, British Guiana, and San Domingo—and, more recently, Eritrea and Madagascar have also been mentioned—for various reasons, the final choice of the Zionists has been Palestine.The Zionists themselves do not constitute one united group. At least four separate organisations go to make up the movement. The largest group is the Histadruth, the Trade Union wing. The others are the Revisionists, an extreme group, whose methods and activities are strongly anti-democratic and violent in character; a religious section; and lastly, the Democratic Zionists. Although some of them are now prepared to accept the compromise of Palestine, i.e., the division of Palestine into two separate states, the overwhelming majority, irrespective of the group to which they belong, now want the whole of the country as a Jewish state.The essence of Zionism is escape; escape once and for all from hatred and persecution. Its supporters argue that the main cause of the troubles of the Jews is the fact that they have no country of their own. Only by settling in a country of their own will they be safe from anti-semitism. No longer then will they be a small minority of outcasts, dependent upon the tolerance of others, but members of their own Jewish state. As such they will be free from interference and discrimination.Such beliefs are mere wishful thinking. In the first place, many Jews are not the slightest bit interested in going to Palestine. This is recognised by many Zionists themselves in their more realistic moments. In any case, even if it was a fact that every Jew wanted to go, the country itself is incapable of supporting such an increased population. This, too, was recognised by David Ben-Gurion, a well-known Zionist leader, when he said:“We shall go to Palestine in order to become the majority there. If need be we shall take the country by force. If Palestine proves too small . . . her frontiers will have to be extended” (Manchester Guardian, 3.7.46).The declared and avowed aim of the Zionists is to make Palestine a Jewish state. They are, in short, “nationalists”, looking to solve their problems not by abolishing capitalism but by creating one more national state in a capitalist world of national states and empires. Zionist nationalism, as such, is not different from the other nationalisms and we, as Socialists, are opposed to them all, whether they be British, American, Russian, Polish, Indian, or any other. The most that could be said for nationalist movements where directed against alien rulers was the argument that, with alien rule ended, it would be easier for the workers to grasp the fact that their enemy is capitalism, whether the capitalists are aliens or not. It is, however, clear, that in practice the capitalist class in each country finds it about as easy to set the workers against the workers of other countries as it was to set them against a foreign ruling-class. What are called nationalist movements are essentially the movements of capitalist groups striving to drive out foreign exploiters so that they can mount the vacant saddle.The spokesmen of nationalist movements do not in the main declare their capitalist objectives. British capitalism talked of pacifying the Middle East, or of helping the Jews and Arabs. Actually, British Imperialism was in Palestine for reasons of Imperial strategy and to protect oil interests in that region; which also of course explains the increasing intervention of the USA in the Middle East. With all this, a new factor is becoming of importance, which we shall refer to again later, the factor of rising Arab nationalism.It is against this background that the demand is made for the settlement of Jewish people in Palestine, with the usual irrelevant arguments so beloved of all nationalisms. The Principal Rabbi of the Federation of Synagogues, Kopul Rosen, writing to The Times (13/7/46), claims, for example, that those who work for the return of the Jewish people to Zion, “whether they be Zionists or non-Zionists, are fulfilling not a secular ambition, but the Divine will as revealed in the visions of Israel’s prophets”. Moslem Arabs can, of course, invoke a like “Divine” mission.Similarly the Zionists talk of the “historical connection” of the Jews with Palestine. The Jews, they say, are returning home to the land of their forefathers, which they left many centuries ago. As we have already seen, this is no claim at all. The Jews were certainly not the original inhabitants of Palestine, and, further than that, they have had no contact with the country worth speaking about for almost two thousand years. The Welsh could just as logically argue for taking back England again, or the Red Indians for taking back North America. Such sentimental arguments are always to be found associated with nationalism.The Zionists also attempt to bolster up their case by referring to the progress and prosperity they have brought to Palestine. They instance the large increase in the Arab population itself; the higher standard of living of the Palestine Arabs compared with that of Arabs in other countries; and the fact that no Arab has been turned off his land without compensation. But here again, these arguments count very little. They in no way face up to the fact that there is a considerable section of Arab landless labourers in Palestine, many of whom are compelled to work for Jewish farmers and capitalists, and that generally their wages are less than those paid to Jews. Nor should it be forgotten, when comparing the wages of Arabs in Palestine with those earned by Arabs in other countries that the cost of living tends to be considerably higher in Palestine.But, in any case, all these arguments are really incidental to the question. The crux of the matter is that the Zionists are now determined at all costs to make a Jewish National State in Palestine. As such they come into direct conflict with the Arab ruling class in Palestine itself, and, more particularly, they become the objects of hatred of the Arab world generally. The main point of the Zionist case is that by establishing a National Home of their own they would be free from anti-semitism. In this, they have been proved completely mistaken. In their efforts to flee from the anti-semitism in Europe, they have only succeeded in generating another, Arab anti-semitism. Even on the short view of helping the homeless refugees, the wisdom of this policy is more than doubtful.Finally, it must be stressed that Zionism, even if it were to succeed in Palestine, which is doubtful to say the least, is itself no solution to the Jewish problem. To set up a Jewish state in Palestine in no way solves the problem of anti-semitism in Britain, the United States, Russia, Canada, South Africa, or any other country. Whatever happens about the National State in Palestine, the Jews will still be the object of hatred and discrimination in those countries. Anti-semitism will not be eradicated by the founding of Jewish National States, whether they be in Palestine or anywhere else. The root cause of modern anti-semitism, as we have already pointed out, is to be found in the capitalist system of society, and only when capitalism itself is abolished will anti-semitism disappear. If any Jewish worker reading this pamphlet feels himself filled with the need to reproach us for what he thinks is an “unrealistic attitude”, let him reflect for a moment upon the so-called “realistic attitude” of the Zionists in Palestine and the results which have ensued. It is the Zionist policy which is “unrealistic”, as many Jews will find to their bitter cost. Our case to the Jewish workers is that under no circumstances should they allow themselves to be deluded by ideas of nationalism and “race” into supporting such movements as Zionism which will not solve their problems.The only solution to anti-semitism is Socialism, and to the extent that Jewish workers co-operate with other members of their class to bring about Socialism will the complete eradication of anti-semitism be more quickly achieved.
This other article, from 1918, also shows that Socialists opposed Zionism from the start:
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1918/no-166-june-1918/futility-zionism
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