Class Struggle and the Jewish Nation: Selected Essays in Marxist Zionism

Ber Borochov

Transaction Publishers - History - 218 pages

This volume contains the first broad selection of essays made available in English by Ber Borochov, one of the leading intellectuals of the early Zionist movement. Borochov founded the Labor Zionist party in 1906, and was the pillar of the Israeli Labor party from whose ranks arose such figures as David Ben-Gurion and Itzhak Ben-Tsvi. He is best remembered for his ability to synthesize socialism and nationalism.

Borochov argues that early Marxist theory failed to understand the causes of nationalism and views it only as a temporary phenomenon. Borochov tried to synthesize socialism with Jewish nationalism. Zionism was a movement necessary to free oppressed Eastern European Jews and permit them to further socialist ideals in their own nation-state. The dilemma is that socialist internationalism requires national culture to be of no further value once a socialist victory occurs in a country. Borochov's essays provide an important, if largely unknown perspective on these questions.

Contents

• On Questions of Zionist Theory: 33
• The National Question and the Class Struggle: 49
• Our Platform: 73
• The Jubilee of the Jewish Labor Movement: 103
• AntiZionist Front: 109
• Jewish AntiSemitism: 121
• Difficulties of Poale Zionism: 127
• The Aims of Yiddish Philology: 133
• Hebraismus Militans: 141
• National Helplessness versus National SelfHelp: 145
• Two Currents in Poale Zionism: 149
• The Socialism of Poale Zion Here: 153
• Healthy and Sick Socialism: 161
• The Economic Development of the Jewish People: 165
• The Terrorist and the Shomer: 177
• Reminiscences On the Occasion of the Tenth Anniversary of the Poale Zion in Russia 190616: 181
• At the Cradle of Zionist Socialism: 185
• A Lieberman Father of Jewish Socialism: 189
• Facing Reality: 195
• Eretz Israel in Our Program and Tactics: 199
• Declaration to the HollandoScandinavian Socialist Committee Submitted by the Jewish Socialist Labor Confederation Poale Zion: 203
• Glossary: 213

Popular passages

Page 1 - National differences and antagonisms between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto.‎

Bibliographic information

• Title: Class Struggle and the Jewish Nation: Selected Essays in Marxist Zionism; Judaica series
• Author: Ber Borochov
• Editor: Mitchell Cohen
• Publisher: Transaction Publishers
• ISBN: 1412819695, 9781412819695
• Length: 218 pages
• Subjects: History / Middle East / General; History / Middle East / Israel & Palestine