Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeter Bund in Lite, Poyln un Rusland

The Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeter Bund in Lite, Poyln un Rusland (General Jewish Workers’ Union in Lithuania, Poland and Russia, or Bund in short) was founded in Vilnius in 1897. The Bund, at the same time a trade union and political vanguard party, occupied a central position in the Russian ‘Jewish street’ in the early 20th century. Noteworthy are the influence of the Bund in the establishment of Russian social democracy, and the later conflicts between the two parties on the question of organisational autonomy. Key elements in the ideology and praxis of the Bund were its anti-Zionism and commitment to work in the Diaspora (the principle of ‘doykeyt’, here-ness), the rejection of the Marxist assimilationist paradigm and instead the formulation of the doctrine of ‘national neutralism’, and its support for the development of Yiddish as a language and culture. There were around 25,000-35,000 bundists in 1905. By 1917, the number had risen to around 40,000 members. Following the October Revolution, the Civil War and the construction of the Soviet state, the majority of the Bund was absorbed by the Communist Party. The last bundist groups in the Soviet Union, affiliated with the Socialist International, ceased to function around 1923. The focus of its activities then shifted to Poland, where the party remained active (notably as a resistance group during the war) until its liquidation by the Stalinist regime in 1948. At the first World Conference of the Bund, organised in Brussels in 1947, the World Coordinating Committee of Bundist and Affiliated Socialist Jewish Organisations was established. The Bund – named International Jewish Labour Bund since the end of the Second World War – does not attribute to Israel any special importance in the life of the Jewish people, and takes a neutralist stance with regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A “Committee Abroad” of the Bund was already founded in 1898; the party also provided assistance to so-called Landsmanschaften and other sympathising organisations in the USA. A Belgian section of the Bund existed at least since 1904, implanted in Antwerp, Ghent, Liège but especially in Brussels, where it cooperated with the Belgian socialist party. The Belgian Bund established i.a. the Kulturfarayn (around 1922-1923) which would develop into a veritable political and cultural mass organisation, the Vladimir Medem club (°1929), Kinderfraynd (°1929) with its own vacation colony (until 1969), the mutual aid association Arbeter Ring (°1929), a sportclub, a theater group, two Yiddish schools (one of which remained active until the 1960s) and a youth movement that disappeared after the Second World War.