Några för Bund karaktäristiska citat från viktige ledaren (1882 –1942), ur en artikel mot sionismen i tidningen Di Tsukunft 1938, publicerad i översättning här:
“So what are the main arguments that we have used against Zionism, throughout the decades of the Bund’s existence? We have said that Zionism is not and cannot be the solution to the Jewish question; that by sowing the illusion that Zionism is the answer among the Jewish masses, Zionism diverts their attention and energy away from the goals of their own struggle; and that due to its disdaining attitude towards galuth [JOB:s not: diasporan] and contempt towards the Yiddish language, it is a stumbling stone that stands in the way of the development of Jewish culture.
Over the years, Zionism has transmogrified [JOB:s not: ett litet märkligt ord att använda för översättningen här; man undrar hur jiddisch-originalets formulering såg ut] itself into being in an open alliance with our blood-enemy – anti-Semitism. Zionism has practically always derived its inspiration from the persecutions endured by Jewish people, from political reactionism above all. Throughout the 40 years of Zionism’s existence, the following rule has practically always held: the darker the world, the brighter it gets in the Zionist tent; the worse for Jews, the better for Zionists.
What can a Jewish Palestine be in the best case scenario?
A small kingdom of a tiny Hebraist tribe within the Jewish people. When Zionists speak to the non-Jewish world, they are outstanding democrats, and they present the conditions in today’s and future Palestine as exemplary of liberty and progress. But if a Jewish state is to be founded in Palestine, its spiritual climate will be: an eternal fear of the external enemy (Arabs), unending fighting for every little piece of land, for every scrap of work, against the internal enemy [Editor’s note: Palestinians], and a tireless struggle for the eradication of the language and culture of the non-Hebraized Jews of Palestine. Is this the kind of climate, in which freedom, democracy, and progress can flourish? Is this not the climate, in which reactionism and chauvinism typically germinate? Today, even truly Zionist publicists, upon visiting the Holy Land, admit that clericalism has excessive influence there, despite Zionist manual workers playing such a distinguished role in the Zionist organization.”
“Zionism has all along been a Siamese twin of anti-Semitism and every kind of nationalist chauvinism. Zionism has always regarded the law of force, of nationalist reactionism, as the normal law of history, and on this law it has built its interpretations of Jewish life.”
Mycket mer av intresse finns i artikeln, om hur sionisterna behandlade diasporajudarna, om deras förhållande till olika fascistledare, hur de exploaterade antisemitismen, och vilka följderna skulle bli av deras projekt – det mesta slående i ljuset av vad vi nu vet om hur det faktiskt gick.
Här ytterligare några stycken som Molly Crabapple lagt ut på Facebook, i översättning från en tidigare artikel på samma tema, från 1933, med rubriken ‘We Are Not the Chosen People’:
“One of our greatest sins in the eyes of the Jewish bourgeoisie has been that in the course of the thirty-five years of our existence as a party we have not ceased to defend the simple principle that we, Jews, are not a chosen people, neither in the positive nor in the negative sense of the word, but a people just like any other nation, and that even though our history and the social-economic circumstances of our lives are unique, the same rules apply to us that regulate the lives of all other nations in the world. Our Jewish bourgeois opponents are especially enraged by our claim that there is a certain kind of Jewish nationalism that is just as ugly, just as disgusting as the nationalism of the other nations; and if Jewish nationalism, as a general rule, is not bloodthirsty, this is only out of necessity, not virtue; if an appropriate opportunity arose, Jewish nationalism would show its sharp teeth and nails no less than the nationalisms of other nations…
To be sure, Jabotinsky is nothing more than a small-scale Hitler, a fascist clown. But this clown has devoured a significant portion, if not the majority of our very own [heymish] Zionism. The fascist hooliganism that Jabotinsky preaches suits the mood that enveloped a significant portion of the Jewish bourgeoisie and especially bourgeois Jewish youth. Of course, Jabotinsky’s brown-shirt soldiers are nothing more than a tragicomic caricature of Hitler’s SA people. But the only thing missing in order for them to become the same beasts is some muscle strength, some territory, and a political opportunity. In Berlin they have actually ‘bravely’ joined the lines of the real brown-shirt bandits. And in Palestine, too, they have demonstrated that they are not weaklings.
No, we are not a chosen people. Our nationalism is just as ugly, just as harmful, and has the same inclination to fascist debauchery as the nationalisms of all the other nations.”
Allt – och mycket mer – finns förstås i Mollys bok. Det här citerade är relevant för den serie inlägg om Israel som jag för närvarande försöker skriva, men lika viktigt är givetvis Bunds socialism (för bundisterna var de citerade ställningstagandena givetvis centralt relaterade även till denna), som var en definierande del av deras förståelse av sin “härhet” (doikayt) och identitet i sina respektive länder.
Olle Bengtsson 