Converging Alternatives

The Bund and the Zionist Labor Movement, 1897-1985

By Yosef Gorny

Subjects: Israel Studies
Series: SUNY series in Israeli Studies
Paperback : 9780791466605, 324 pages, June 2006
Hardcover : 9780791466599, 324 pages, January 2006

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Table of contents

Preface
Acknowledgments

1. Between Class and Nation: The Bund in Russia 1897–1917
2. Between Eretz Israel and the Diaspora—The Second Aliya, 1904–1914
3. From Class to Peoplehood: The Polish Bund, 1917–1932
4. Between the “Zionist Klal” and the “Halutsic Klal”— The Zionist Labor Movement in the 1920s
5. The Tragic Illusion
6. Between Pioneerhood and Peoplehood—The Zionist Labor Movement 1930–1947
7. From Bund to Bundism, 1947–1985
8. From Zionist Klal to Jewish Klal

Conclusion
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

The first comparative study of two major Jewish labor movements.

Description

Converging Alternatives provides the first comparative study of the national ideology of two rival Jewish socialist movements: the Bund party and the Zionist Labor movement in Eretz-Israel (Palestine). Yosef Gorny traces the concept of the Jewish nation from the foundation of the Bund and the first Zionist Congress in 1897 until the remains of the Bund decided to join the Jewish local and world institutions in 1985. The following events from those years are covered: the Soviet Revolution, the Balfour declaration, the founding of the Polish Republic, the British Mandate on Palestine, the rise of the Nazi party in Germany, the Jewish-Arab conflict, the Holocaust, and the gradual disappearance of the two movements from the historical stage. This innovative approach to the Bund and Zionist movements helps explain the connection between nationalism and multiculturalism in the Jewish modern tradition.

Yosef Gorny is Professor of Jewish History at Tel-Aviv University. He is the author of many books, including The British Labour Movement and Zionism, 1917–1948.