The International Jewish Labor Bund after 1945: Toward a Global History

Although it would never again reach the popularity and influence it had enjoyed among Jews in interwar Poland, Bundist life continued late into the twentieth century and beyond. However, Bundists established branches in dozens of cities around the world and tried to rebuild some semblance of what had been destroyed. Bundists also came together in Brussels in to form the International Jewish Labor Bund, an organizing body based in New York that incorporated Bund groups and organizations from dozens of locations. Like all Holocaust survivors, the process of rebuilding their lives was disorienting for Bundists, but the structures they created gave them a sense of comfort and familiarity that helped them navigate the process of displacement.

Yet how could a movement so rooted in the conditions and circumstances of prewar eastern Europe adapt to new circumstances in which surviving Polish Jews were now only a tiny proportion of world Jewry, scattered in pockets throughout Western Europe, the Americas, Israel, and Australia?

The International Jewish Labor Bund after 1945: toward a global history.

The trajectory of the Bund after the Holocaust—its successes and contradictions—can be seen in the lives of two men who would come to lead their respective chapters of the Bund. These two men lived contrasting lives. Scherer and many other Bundists like him were not ready to give up the dream of revolution, of socialism in their lifetime, and of Jews fostering Yiddish cultural life in democratic and multiethnic societies. How could it continue to maintain its prewar significance in the new world order of a Jewish state and the rapid decline of Jewish socialism?

David Slucki

Like Scherer, Melbourne Bund leader Bono Wiener is ever present in the records of his local Bund chapter, both physically and spiritually. Standing over six-feet tall, with a knowing smile which later was often beaming through his greying moustache , Wiener was an energetic activist, a tuer in Yiddish, in the truest sense of the word.

When he eventually settled in Melbourne in , he very quickly became a prominent figure within the Melbourne Bund, the local Jewish community, and among the migrant chapter of the Australian Labor Party. The two men are studies in contrast: Scherer spent the remainder of his life employed by the Bund; Wiener was a laborer-turned-businessman, whose political activities supplemented his working life. Scherer was known for his intensity; Wiener, for his good humor, malleability, and fondness for a bottle of whisky.

Scherer maintained his fervent anti-Zionism throughout his life. Wiener, on the other hand, held strong affection for the State of Israel, visiting regularly and making financial contributions. While Scherer clung to ideas about the future prospects for socialism and operated primarily in the political and theoretical sphere, Wiener was more concerned with the day-to-day concerns of how to best improve the lot of the Australian working class, and how to secure the place of Yiddish culture among Australian Jewry.

Project MUSE - The International Jewish Labor Bund after

Certainly, he dreamed of the triumph of democratic socialism, but he was very much consumed by how this would play out locally. This contrast is at the heart of the postwar Bund, which was torn between its desire to recreate a glorious, imagined past, and the realities on the ground in which it no longer carried widespread appeal. With the decline of the organized Jewish labor movement everywhere except Israel and the marginalization of Yiddish in Jewish life, Bundists stood little chance of reinventing their shattered movement.

The Bund in the postwar world operated on two interconnected levels: The book explores the particular circumstances that allowed Bundist youth camps to flourish until the s in Australia, but fizzle in France. It demonstrates how Bund members came to play significant roles in US and Australian politics, although not necessarily in their capacity as Bundists per se.

Slucki shows repeatedly how the post-war Bundist organisations were firmly embedded in their respective milieus and remained thoroughly committed to doikayt — this makes for fascinating reading for veteran Bundists, historians and leftists alike. Readers might ask, what is the point of learning about this small organisation in decline? As the trope goes: Needless to say, neither Yiddish nor socialism — the twin bedrocks of Bundism — have won many great victories lately. Slucki paints portraits not of victorious historical explosions, but of brave women and men who came out the other side of hell and painstakingly rebuilt a movement dedicated to social justice and cultural freedom.

The book should be compulsory reading for anyone interested enriching the tapestry.

The International Jewish Labor Bund After 1945 - Toward a Global History (Electronic book text)

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