There is an alternative to zionism
JVL Introduction
David Rosenberg writes in the context of the current bombardments of Gaza and Hamas attacks; he notes the increased preparedness amongst Jews to stand up and remind the Jewish Establishment that they do not speak for all Jews in the UK ; in the US thousands of young Jews have mobilised around the message: “We refuse to let our grief be used as a justification for further bloodshed and a second Nakba.”
David also writes about the Bund which was decimated by the Holocaust (and the Jewish Socialist Group has a new pamphlet) and it was scattered after the war and they “were politically marginalised by the dominance of zionism.” But perhaps now their opposition to a nationalist frame is more important than ever and it is to be welcomed that the ideas of the Bund are attracting renewed interest.
LL
This article was originally published by The Morning Star on Fri 27 Oct 2023. Read the original here.
Jewish alternatives to zionism
The large demonstrations against the war in Gaza saw a participation of progressive young Jews. David Rosenberg welcomes the renewed interest in the traditions of Jewish socialist internationalism
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Jewish Socialist – always interesting ideas/reading and well worth subscribing.
“There where we live, that is our country … It saw a Jewish future as minorities in the diaspora …. The Bund was decimated in the Holocaust.”
Well didn’t that work out well, so let’s go again because there is no more antisemitism in Europe and no Jewish State needed.
A wonderful article and at last the msm have been forced to show the many Jewish organisations who support Palastinians rights and deplore the Israeli governments bombing of Gaza. The msm in this country have for too long failed to acknowledge that the British board of Deputies do not speak for all Jews .
It is unlikely that I am the only one who has never quite understood the complex story of Israel, and the heart-breaking struggles and politics there since the War. David Rosenberg’s article is so enlightening, as I realise the complexity of Jewish ideas/beliefs/ideologies born out of the hideous and catastrophic Nazi Holocaust.
Diagrammatically, I am now visualising an X : with one line representing Jewish fundamentalists grading to Jewish, but internationalist; and the other line representing politically progressive (Marxist) ideologists at one end and political conservatives/even racists at the other end. The majority of Jewish people are contained somewhere in middle and perhaps, are even as confused as I am about what is a just, and moral cause.
I was born 1945 to a communist, am not Jewish, and grew up thinking of Jewish people as tending towards Left politics. But in my 30s I made a lifelong friend who had been born into a Jewish enclave of North London. Her sense of Jewishness was lightly cultural, and politically neutral to conservative (I rarely broached politics with her). In her late forties she made aliyah, and her children followed suit. I felt ambivalence: Israel was not their country; they were economically OK here; they didn’t have any special assets to offer; in fact, my friend was usually out of work in Israel, whereas here, she had had a salaried job. Multiplied many times, this was a form of occupation by people who had no obvious need for leaving their birth country and nothing in particular to offer Israel, except – perhaps – increasing its population (how many countries in the World accept immigrants based purely on race?)
The Palestinians were not responsible for the Holocaust, and it is they who are paying an horrific price over 70 years later. Moreover, the history of Israel and Palestine since 1945 make it very hard to feel sympathy with Israel who have benefitted from becoming a useful ally and arms-builder for the politically right-wing West and America.