In honor of Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s 84th Yahrtzeit, 29th of Tammuz.
Zionism’s competitor for the attraction of the souls of Jewish youth in the late 1920s and 1930s was Communism, a movement itself with significant Jewish roots. During those inter-war years, tens of thousands of those Jewish youth joined the various Jewish youth movements, attended the training farms for agricultural life in Mandate Palestine and immigrated to the country, legally or clandestinely, Yet, at the same time, equivalent numbers of Jewish youth entered the ranks of the Communist party, a movement with Jewish roots.
Ever since the founding of the Jewish Bund in Vilna in 1897, the idea of a social revolution attracted Jewish youth. Its activists played a major role in the formation of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. The RSDLP was a socialist party founded in 1898 in Minsk. It split in 1903 into a Bolshevik (“majority”) faction and a Menshevik (“minority”) faction. Eventually, the Bolsheviks became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Bundists heroic participation in the 1903-1906 period of pogroms and the self-defense actions following the 1903 Revolution brought it much respect.
The solution to this challenge from the Marxist anti-Zionist Left was the founding of socialist and Marxist parties and factions within the Zionist movement. These included Poale Zion, HaPoel HaTzair, Ahdut HaAvoda, Mapai and HaShomer HaTzair. The greatest clash with the Bund and Communism existed between those of the Revisionist movement, founded by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, especially its youth movement, Betar. The followers of Jabotinsky saw themselves as the champions of the bourgeoisie and actively campaigned against the idea of a class struggle which caused them to become an anathema to the Left and viewed by it as “fascist”, a term first used against Jabotinsky during the 1921 Petliura Affair.
In today’s contemporary world, a similar situation of tension and conflict exists. Zionism is faced with a competitor, progressive wokeism, which, especially among Jewish youth, intersectionally links Jewish existence with the liberation of Palestine. Jews cannot be free, goes the mantra, unless Palestinians gain freedom. Yet, at the same time, Jewish national identity is denied for the call has been sounded to “eliminate Zionism”.
Given this state of affairs, I think it helpful to re-read “Zion and Communism”, an article Ze’ev Jabotinsky published over two issues of the Haynt Yiddish-language Warsaw daily newspaper, on May 24 and 26, 1932. By employing extensive excerpts, I wish to provide insight and perspective into Jabotinsky’s thinking, his analysis and conclusions.
Over nine decades ago, Jabotinsky returned a second time to deal with the influence Marxist forces possessed as a competition for the souls of young Jews. In 1906, he published a pamphlet criticizing the Jewish Bund. His opposition to the Marxist framework only grew stronger.
^^^
In the 1932 two-part article, Jabotinsky writes that he received a letter from a young man who wrote:
“For five years I took an active part in the activities of a Zionist youth organization, but in the last year my views on society have changed significantly. I no longer believe in the existing regime and have an aversion to the Social Democrats. They remind me of our Zionism, in which they hope for evolution, engage in miniature socialism and, albeit against their will, betrayal. And if so, communism looks much more attractive. But first of all, I would like to see my people settled and rooted in Israel, or at least at the beginning of this process; then I could devote myself to the fight for a new regime. When I shared these thoughts with my fellow members of the organization, it only led to friction, which I will not talk about.”
He asks Jabotinsky directly:
“What advice can you give me? Do I have the right to remain in the Zionist organization with these views or should I leave it? What do you think about it?”
Jabotinsky began his reply in a straightforward fashion:
“Anyone who has lost hope of realizing the goals of Zionism and has ceased to be a Zionist in his soul should not make extra efforts to understand them, but get up and follow the call of his heart.”
For Jabotinsky,
“Zionism embodies pride and recognition of the right to state sovereignty, and these traits cannot allow it to accept a position in which the Jewish problem is pushed out of the first place and makes way for others, no matter how great and significant they may be on a global scale. For a person who feels this way, even the salvation of the whole world is irrelevant as long as the Jewish people do not have their own country, like all nations.”
He then admits that it is quite possible that someone who was not a Zionist nevertheless would consider himself as one after
“the proclamation of the Balfour Declaration, when Zionism became fashionable and it seemed that it was about to come true, and without any particular difficulties.”
However, when
“difficulties emerged, it went out of fashion, and the man who considered himself a Zionist sees that he was mistaken, he can exist without saving Israel and can be satisfied with the salvation of the rest of the world. Such a person should be told: if so, go in peace, and the sooner the better.”
He then notes the phenomenon of assimilation and the healing effect Zionism had:
“There was a period in the seventies when it was customary for the masses to leave the fold of Jewry. Almost every young man who entered a public school was a candidate for spiritual outcast; but we have overcome this phenomenon. And thank God, we were honored to witness the first pioneers Bilu, Herzl, Nordau and others. We have nothing to fear from those who leave. We are infinitely rich. I say in all seriousness to all Zionist youth organizations: open your doors to all doubters; everyone: look into your soul, maybe you are mistaken, and in your soul Zionism does not dominate other worldviews.”
The young person who wrote to Jabotinsky, however, does not reject, in a total fashion, Zionism:
“But the young man who wrote me the letter belongs to a different type of people, and such young men are typical of our time. He does not reject Zionism in his soul, he only wants to combine it with another ideal; he even says that first he wants to see the Jewish people settling in the land of Israel. Such a person must be answered honestly: there cannot be a before and an after, but only that which serves one ideal, for not only is there no place for another ideal, but a necessity arises against it if it interferes with the first.”
Jabotinsky then seeks to differentiate between an outlook and an ideal:
“Every educated person has different points of view on all sorts of vital issues. He may be a pacifist…a supporter of the Arab people, and advocate for them to obtain an Arab federation from Morocco to Iraq…He may be an enemy of the existing regime and believe that the fairest regime is socialism. He may even believe that communist methods are more suitable for completing socialism than social democratic ones. Many thoughtful and serious people hold similar views in various fields. But these are just views, not ideals. An ideal is a special kind of worldview to which one is loyal; and whenever a contradiction arises between the ideal and other worldviews, they serve the first and discard the rest.“
To highlight the ideal, Jabotinsky emphasizes that:
“In every movement there are internal problems of conscience. This especially applies to so-called “revolutionary” movements. In principle they are against bloodshed, but they do not follow this principle when an ideal forces them…I am willing to believe that the Russian communists are against the principle of militarism, but they have created the largest army in the world. There are many examples from all areas of life. But there is one iron rule: a person cannot achieve something without being willing to sacrifice other worldviews when necessary. Hence the holy intolerance of the ideal. The ideal does not tolerate any competition.”
Jabotinsky now arrives at the cutting edge of his argument:
“This brings us to a fundamental dilemma: is it possible, as my young friend hopes, to combine active work in favor of Zionism with consistent service to communism. If this is possible, there is no contradiction, but if not, then…”
He points out that in Mandate Palestine, it is the middle class that is providing the funding and the investments for major national enterprises that include construction, factories and agricultural resettlements. This is bourgeoisie money. Jabotinsky notes:
“this fact may or may not be unpleasant, but it is a fact. And one of the leading principles of communism is the class struggle breaking through the bourgeoisie and its goal to put an end to the bourgeoisie after the victory of the proletarian revolution, to requisition all its property, large and small. And this means destroying the only source of capital for the construction of Israel.”
He also adds something which will sound very familiar to today’s generation:
“Communism, by its nature, seeks to set the peoples of the East against European countries. It sees European countries as “imperialist and exploitative” regimes. It is absolutely clear that the communists will incite the peoples of the East against Europe. And they can do this only under the slogan of national liberation. It tells them: “Your countries belong to you, not to strangers.” They will inevitably say the same to the Arabs, especially the Arabs of Palestine. For in accordance with the strategic law, no army, no fighting movement must be neglected, and the enemy must be struck at his weak point. Jews are weaker than the British, French and Italians.”
And he stresses:
“Fundamentally communism is against Zionism. Communism cannot help but undermine Zionism and provide the Arabs with the opportunity to turn Palestine into part of a larger Arab state. He can’t lead any other way. Communism seeks to undermine and destroy the only source of the building fund – the Jewish bourgeoisie, because its basis is the principle of class struggle against the bourgeoisie. And therefore both of these movements are incompatible even theoretically. Anyone who wants to serve Zionism cannot help but fight against communism. The entire process of building communism, even if it takes place somewhere on the other side of the planet, in Mexico or Tibet, is detrimental to the construction of the Land of Israel. Every failure of communism is in favor of Zionism. Rarely do you encounter two such sharply incompatible movements in life.”
Jabotinsky now reaches his summation:
“Zionism cannot exist in an atmosphere of communism. If Zionism takes first place in the heart, there is no place in it for pro-communist tendencies, because for Zionism, communism is like a suffocating gas, and only as such can it be treated. Either this or that….Bow your head before one ideal. A person can live without an ideal – this does not interfere with earnings, but only a chatterbox can put up with two ideals.
“If you chose communism, go in peace. If the Jewish state is to be in the land of Israel, then your sympathy for communism is meaningless, and you must fight that belief system, end it, like I do. But I do it with pleasure, and you with regret, that’s all to be discerned between us. Those are the only two possibilities. There is no third option.”
In his recent book, “Unsettled: American Jews and the Movement for Justice in Palestine”, Oren Kroll-Zeldin, a declared anti-Zionist activist, identifies four main Jewish anti-Israel anti-Zionist activist groups, “IfNotNow”, “All That’s Left”, the “Center for Jewish Non-Violence” and “Jewish Voice for Peace”. Their membership is small and not wholly Jewish. Nevertheless, with skillful use of social media platforms, unusual demonstrations and street actions as well as rhetoric of revolution, they have succeeded in grabbing attention, mobilizing Jewish youth and influencing the agenda of a small but significant element on the Jewish scene.
Reviewing Jabotinsky’s 100-year old article illustrates his insight and wisdom at the time while providing some course of reaction to the woes of today’s Jewish opponents of Zionism.
