THE DETROIT OMR NEWS
FIRESTONE
An Historic Survey of Jewish Socialism
By ALLEN WARSEN
"In writing this work, I
have been conscious of to-
day's young Jews groping
for ways to reconcile their
own social radicalism with
Jewishness. Their search
will have to be their own,
but perhaps they will be
heartened in their quest by
the kno;ivledge that there
have been several genera-
tions of other young Jews
who have made a similar
struggle."
Thus wrote Nora Levin in
the foreword to her monu-
mental work "While Mes-
siah Tarried," subtitled
"JeWish Socialist Move-
ments: 1871-1917," (Schoc-
ken).
The book is composed of
four parts and includes a
My Mother
always taught
me to . . .
dress warmly, eat the right
foods, pick good
company, work hard, be
fair with my customers,
always give them extra
value for their money .. .
"I always follow her
advice. That's why I'm the
country's top Cadillac
salesman.
'Thank you, Mother!'
AL KLINE
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mosaic of illustrations por-
traying historic scenes and
photographs of the founders
and ideologists of Jewish
socialism.
Part I, "The Beginnings
in Russia." explores the
historic factor that
brought about the
Jewish socialist move-
ment. They include, inter
alia, anti-Semitism and
economic discrimination.
Already in 1550 Ivan the
Terrible would not -allow
Lithuanian Jews to carry on
business in Russia •"since
many evils result from
them. For they import
poisonous herbs (medicines)
into our realm, and lead as-
tray the Russians from
Christianity."
He also ordered the Jews
of Polotzk, a city he had cap-
tured from Poland, either to
convert to Russian Or-
thodoxy or be drowned in
the Dwine River.
In
1741
Empress
Elizabeth ordered all Jews
expelled from their
domiciles in Great and Lit-
tle Russia. ,
Fifty-three years later,
Catherine II decreed the
creation of the Pale of Set-
tlement that lasted until
1917.
Significantly, in the
course of 120 years, the
Czars issued 140 anti-
Jewish statutes.
The Czarist anti-
Jewish policies reached
their climax in the early
1880s. The Jews were
then accused of master-
minding and carrying out
the assassination of Czar
Alexander II. In fact, only
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one Jewish girl, Hessia
Helfmann, was involved
in the plot—she kept a
secret residence for the
assassins.
The false accusations re-
sulted in numerous pog-
roms that brought about a
wave of Jewish mass im-
migration to the United
States and the first "aliya"
to the Holy Land.
Czarist autocratic rule
also was responsible for the
emergence of the Russian
radical populist movement
known qs "Narodnichestvo"
whose aim was the destruc-
tion of the "government and
the social structure of Rus-
sia." The Narodniky re-
garded the Russian monar-
chy as a "moral and political
monstrosity."
Among the populist radi-
cals there also were Jews.
The most prominent were
Mark Natanson and Aaron
ZundeleviCh. The former
was instrumental in found-
ing the "Zemlya and Volya"
(Land and Liberty) move-
ment, the latter helped es-
tablish the first successful
revolutionary underground
printing press.
Interestingly,
the
Jewish populists were
indifferent to anti-Jewish
persecutions and to pog-
roms. They claimed "that
the liberation of the Rus-
sian people from de-
spotism - and the oppres-
sion of the ruling classes
would liberate all other
people in Russia, includ-
ing Jews."
In contrast to the as-
similationist radicals,
Aaron Lieberman, a re-
volutionary socialist, was
concerned with the
wretched living conditions
of the Jewish people, espe-
cially the working masses.
In Berlin, where he re-
sided for a short time, after
having escaped from Russia
in 1875, he tried unsuccess-
fully to establish a "Jewish
section of the Socialist In-
ternational."
Illuminating is the chap-
ter relating the history of
the first successful Ameri-
can Yiddish socialist paper,
the "Arbayter Zaytung"
(Worker's Newspaper). Its
first issue, which appeared
March 7, 1890, was edited
by Philip Kranz and co-
edited by Morris Hillquit
and Abe Cahan.
Interestingly, the editors
differed regarding the
paper's Yiddish. Kranz pre-
ferred a Germanized Yid-
dish; Cahan favored "a
faithful reproduction of the
spoken Yiddish with all its
crudities;" Hillquit, who re-
garded Yiddish as corrupted
German, advocated "that
the task of the Yiddish wri-
ter was to purify it and ul-
timately convert it into
modern German."
The paper's most popular
feature was Cahan's "Sidra
of the Week," a fusion of
rabbinic sayings, biblical
quotations and current
events. Cahan signed his
"sidra" "Der Proletarishker
Magrid."
The part of the book
evaluating the Bund pre-
sents a panorama of
socialist activities, ac-
complishments, strug-
gles with the oppressive
government and devo-
tion to the cause of free-
dom and human dignity.
Curiously, the Bund and
political Zionism came into
being in 1897: the Bund in
an attic in Vilna, political
Zionism in Basel, Switzer-
land.
Perceptive is the author's
account of the evolution of
socialist-Zionism. Unlike
the Bund's beginnings, the
publication of Nachman
Syrkin's brochure "The
Jewish Question and -the
Socialist Jewish State" in
1898 in Zurich, Switzer-
land, marked the origin of
socialist-Zionism.
Syrkin's ideas, prop-
ounded in his brochure,
soon reached the Pale of
Settlement and resulted in
the establishment of
socialist-Zionist organiza-
tions, Poale Zion.
Incidentally, according to
Friday, Febriary 3, 1978 11
JEWELRY
hole.eir liturtirmits
the researches of this wri-
ter, there existed a Poale
Zion organization in Detroit
in 1907.
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