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@workerscircle.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 3:29 PM

In honor of the founding of the Jewish Labor Bund, this week’s article from the Call comes from the November 1972 edition and provides a brief history of the organization.

Learn more about the impacts of the Bundists on the Workers Circle at thecall.org.
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The Bund r I ^HIS year marks the seventy-fifth -*■ anniversary of the founding of the Bund, that is, of Jewish socialism in Eastern Europe. There were adherents and advocates of socialism in the Pale of Settlement in czarist Russia, and elsewhere too, but it was in 1897, at an illegal conference in the city of Vilna, that the basis was laid for what was to become a powerful and glorious movement. The role of the Bund among the Jewish workers and, indeed, among the Jewish masses as a whole, constitutes a magnificient epic of courage and vision in the history of our people.

It is necessary to remember that the vast majority of our people at that time still lived in Eastern Europe, primarily in czarist Russia, an empire characterized by tyranny and despotism. The lot of the Jewish masses was altogether deplorable; the rights of citizenship were not accorded them, they were not allowed to reside in a large part of the country, were excluded from numerous economic areas, and were cut off from general education by a rigorous quota, particularly in the universities. Poverty and despair were rampant in the Jewish towns and villages and among the Jewish workers in those larger cities where they were per-

mitted to stay. In 1881, Alexander II was assassinated and, as was to be expected, in the midst of the sinister reaction, the Jews were singled out as easy victims and targets of hate. There was nothing abstract about this hate; it concretized itself in a series of bloody pogroms, instigated by the regime and kept at white heat by the forces of anti-Semitism. It was in this sort of atmsophere that the Bund came into existence. The moment was ripe for it, and quickly it spread throughout Russia proper, Lithuania, and Poland (most of which was a part of Russia) ; there was hardly a Jewish community that did not have a group of the Bund. Where there was no group, its influence and inspiration and guidance were felt nonetheless, raising the horizon of hope for the Jewish masses and all who sympathized with them. The Bund was illegal, and so was the socialist literature that it published. The groups met clandestinely in forests or in cellars, most frequently under the cloak of darkness, and discovery meant arrest, beatings, and imprisonment, even Siberia. Yet in spite of it, the Bund flourished, conducted demonstrations and strikes, and during pogroms it promoted and led Jewish self-defense. This involved heroism as well as idealism, and it was not only heroism as evinced by the chosen ones, by men who seem to be destined for legend, it was the quiet, unostentatious heroism of simple folk, not infrequently of young folk, in their late 'teens or early twenties, as exemplified to the highest degree by Hirsh Lekert (who was executed in 1902 for his attempt to avenge the lashing of Jewish workers for partipating in a May Day Celebration). Thousands of Hirsh Lekerts spent years in imprisonment and in Siberia. It was in 1897 that the first Zionist Congress was held in Basel, Switzerland, and like the Bund it too evoked a spirit of dedication and devotion in the hearts and minds of those who were stirred by its program and by the dream of a Jewish homeland.

interest of the people of the world and that is why they burned the Israelis alive with gas in the soil of Germany." What is one to say about such barbarism? In another day and another climate one could cry out to the conscience of the world. At this hour in history it is rather difficult to locate the conscience of the world. In fairness it should be recorded that the United States is holding up a projected $3 million loan to Uganda. This is a moral plus for America, provided she remains firm in her stand. Bondage in the Soviet Unoin IT was Karl Marx who castigated early capitalism for regarding human labor as a commodity to be sold on the market like any other. The traducers of his teachings in the Soviet Union have reduced man as such to the status of a commodity, a pawn of the state, and have applied it now in the most reprehensible manner to Jews who wish to emigrate to Israel or elsewhere. The pretext for it is that citizens of the Soviet Union are beneficiaries of free education from elementary school through college (for those who can be accepted), and hence it is fitting that the state be compensated for this free education. The claim is preposterous and scandalous. Free education is a feature of all advanced communities. Payment for it is indirect, rendered manifest in the general cultural tone and dynamics of society. Students contribute to it even while in school, and certainly after graduation. Jews who wish to emigrate have already served the state abundantly, more than enough to justify their education. As for the Jews remaining in the Soviet Union, there is no doubt that their collective share in the economic and scientific spheres is quite ample and sufficient to tip the scales in favor of the unhindered right of emigration for those who desire it. Moreover, let us recall that during the Stalin era thousands upon thousands of Jews were sent to labor-camps in Siberia and to prisons, and hundreds of Jewish writers and scholars were liquidated at the-

@bwabits.bsky.social Oct 5, 2026, 9:15 PM

In Episode 103, Sam Skardon shares the moment when Dr. Jermaine Johnson asked him to be his running mate.

You can watch the full interview on our YouTube channel: youtu.be/21T6jvfF02A

Subscribe, download & listen today! linktr.ee/bwabits

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@dead-gnome.bsky.social Oct 3, 2026, 11:11 PM

The Unbidden is finished and ready for preorder. Make sure to read Rude Awakening first, it'll make things much clearer. It's coming out before this, anyway...

a.co/d/0800uuNq

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