SOCIALISM AND ZIONISM: TWO DIFFERENT JEWISH PERSPECTIVES

By Morten Ting

Jewish Socialism has its roots in Russia while the Zionist movement developed in Western Europe. They both offered European Jewry a future but were vastly different in their outlook.

• The Jewish Social Democrats, algemeyner judisher arbeterforbund fun poyln, lite un rusland or Bund, envisaged a Jewish future hand in hand with other nations in a multicultural society based on the Soviet model. Theodor Herzl had visions of a Jewish state based on the French or German model.
• The Bundists wanted to create a Socialist society free of class differentiation. Herzl argued for Jewish Capitalism.
• The Bundist wanted to created something "here", in Europe, while the zionists wanted to created something "there", in Palestine.
• The Bundists represented the Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews, while the Zionists spoke on behalf of all the world's Jews.