Jewish Politics in Eastern Europe: The Bund at 100

The Bund was the first modern Jewish political party in Eastern Europe and, arguably, the strongest Jewish party in Poland on the eve of the Second World War. Though 100 years have passed since its inception, the Bund and its legacy continue to be of abiding interest.

Founded illegally and operated under the most adverse conditions, the Bund grew dramatically in the years immediately after its 1897 creation in Czarist Russia. It helped to organize the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party, it organized armed self-defense groups to fight against pogroms, and it played a significant role in the Russian Revolution of 1905. The Bundist became for many the symbol of the new Jew—enlightened, willing to fight for Jewish rights and needs, and unwilling to accept the status quo of Jewish communities dominated by the orthodox and the wealthy, and of a Russia oppressed by the Czar. Later, Bundist members were among those who contributed substantially to armed resistance in Nazi occupied Poland.

Jewish Politics in Eastern Europe makes use of previously unexamined source materials to offer a range of new perspectives on the significance of the Bund and its ideas. Its fresh and insightful approaches will be of interest to all those concerned with Eastern European Jewry, Russian, Polish, and Ukranian history, and the history of socialist and labor movements.

Author Biography: Jack Jacobs is Professor of Government at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the City University of New York. He is the author of On Socialists and "The Jewish Question" After Marx.