Political Movement - Overview
Jewish political movements refer to the organized
efforts of Jews to build their own political parties or otherwise
represent their interest in politics outside of the Jewish community.
From the time of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans to the
foundation of Israel the Jewish people had no territory, and, until the
1800s they by-and-large were also denied equal rights in the countries
in which they lived. Thus, until the 19th century effort for the
emancipation of the Jews, almost all Jewish political struggles were
internal, and dealt primarily with either religious issues or issues of
a particular Jewish community.
The Birth of Jewish Political Movements
Since Jews were excluded outsiders throughout Europe, they were mostly
shut out of politics or any sort of participation in the wider political
and social sphere of the nations in which they were involved until the
Enlightenment, and its Jewish counterpart, Haskalah, made popular
movements possible. As long as the Jews lived in segregated communities,
and as long as all avenues of social intercourse with their gentile
neighbors were closed to them, the rabbi was the most influential member
of the Jewish community. In addition to being a religious scholar and
clergy, a rabbi also acted as a civil judge in all cases in which both
parties were Jews. Rabbis sometimes had other important administrative
powers, together with the community elders. The rabbinate was the
highest aim of many Jewish boys, and the study of the Talmud was the
means of obtaining that coveted position, or one of many other important
communal distinctions. Haskalah followers advocated "coming out of
ghetto," not just physically but also mentally and spiritually. The
example of Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786), a Prussian Jew, served to lead
this movement. Mendelssohn's extraordinary success as a popular
philosopher and man of letters revealed hitherto unsuspected
possibilities of integration and acceptance of Jews among non-Jews.
Moses Mendelssohn, the founder of the Haskalah movement.
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Moses Mendelssohn, the founder of the Haskalah movement.
The changes caused by the Haskalah movement coincided with rising
revolutionary movements throughout Europe. Despite these movements, only
France and the Netherlands had granted the Jews in their countries equal
rights with gentiles after the French Revolution in 1796. Elsewhere in
Europe, especially where Jews were most concentrated in Central and
Eastern Europe, Jews were not granted equal rights. It was in the
revolutionary atmosphere of the mid-19th century that the first true
Jewish political movements would take place.
Emancipation movements
During the early stages of Jewish emancipation movements, Jews were
simply part of the general effort to achieve freedom and rights that
drove popular uprisings like the Revolutions of 1848. Jewish statesmen
and intellectuals like Heinrich Heine, Johann Jacoby, Gabriel Riesser,
Berr Isaac Berr, and Lionel Nathan Rothschild busied themselves with the
general movement towards liberty and political freedom.
Still, in the face of persistant anti-semitic incidents like the
Damascus Blood Libel of 1840, and the failure of many states to
emancipate the Jews, Jewish organizations started to form in order to
push for the emancipation and protection of Jews. The Board of Deputies
of British Jews under Moses Montefiore, the Central consistory of Paris,
and the The Alliance Israelite Universelle all began working to assure
the freedom of the Jews throughout the middle of the 1800s.
Socialist and Labor movements
Frustration with the slow pace of Jewish acceptance into European
society, and a revolutionary utopianism, led to a growing interest in
proto-socialist movements, especially as early socialist leaders, like
Saint-Simon, preached the emancipation of the Jews. Moses Hess played a
role in introducing Karl Marx (who grew up Christian) and Friedrich
Engles to historical materialism. The Jewish Ferdinand Lassalle, founded
the first actual workers' party in Germany and made his goal
emancipation.
The more intellectual socialist movements of the Jews in Western Europe
never gathered steam as emancipation took hold. In Eastern Europe and
Russia, however, the Bund -- the General Jewish Labor Union -- founded
in 1897, became a key force in organizing Jews, and, at least initially,
the major opponent to the most important of the Jewish political
movements, Zionism.
Zionist movements
See main article: Zionism, Timeline of Zionism
Zionism, or the idea of a national homeland and common identity for the
Jews, had already started to take shape by the mid-1800s, with Jewish
thinkers such as Moses Hess whose 1862 work Rome and Jerusalem; The Last
National Question argued for the Jews to settle in Palestine as a means
of settling the national question. Hess proposed a socialist state in
which the Jews would become agrarianised through a process of
"redemption of the soil" which would transform the Jewish community into
a true nation in that Jews would occupy the productive layers of society
rather than being an intermediary non-productive merchant class which is
how he perceived European Jews. Hess, along with later thinkers such as
Nahum Syrkin and Ber Borochov, is considered a founder of Socialist
Zionism and Labour Zionism and one of the intellectual forebears of the
kibbutz movement.
Theodor Herzl, a key figure in the development of Zionism
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Theodor Herzl, a key figure in the development of Zionism
As the 19th century wore on, the persecution of the Jews in Eastern
Europe where emancipation had not occurred to the extent it did in
Western Europe (or at all) only increased. Starting with the
state-sponsored massive anti-Jewish pogroms following the assassination
of Tsar Alexander II and continuing with the Dreyfus Affair in France in
1894, Jews were profoundly shocked to see the continuing extent of
anti-Semitism from Russia to France, a country which they thought of as
the home of enlightenment and liberty. In reaction to the first, [Judah
Leib Pinsker]] published the pamphlet Auto-Emancipation in January 1,
1882. The pamphlet became influential for the Political Zionism
movement. The movement was to achieve momentum under the leadership of
an Austrian-Jewish journalist, Theodor Herzl, who published his pamphlet
Der Judenstaat ("The Jewish State") in 1896. Prior to the Dreyfus
Affair, Herzl had been anti-Zionist, afterwards he became ardently
pro-Zionist. In 1897 Herzl organised the First Zionist Congress in
Basel, Switzerland, which founded the World Zionist Organisation (WZO)
and elected Herzl as its first President. By the middle of the 20th
century, Zionism, in its various forms, would become the major Jewish
political movement that transcended national boundaries, although many
more Jews would come to participate in the national politics of the
countries in which they resided.
The Folkists
In the aftermath of the 1905 pogroms in Russia, the historian Simon
Dubnow founded the Folkspartei (Yiddishe Folkspartay) which had some
intellectual audience in Russia, then, in independent Poland and
Lithuania in the 1920-1930s where it was represented as well in the
Parliaments (Sejm, Seimas) as in numerous municipal councils (incl.
Warsaw) till in the late 1930s. The party didn't survive the Shoah.
Modern Jewish political movements
Zionism continues to be the central trans-national political movement of
many Jews, although it has split into a variety of branches and
philosophies that span the political spectrum from left-wing to
right-wing. Jews are also active in government in many of the countries
in which they live, as well as in Jewish community organizations that
often take political positions.
In Israel
Outside of Israel
Even in religious Judaism there is much room for a range of political or
moral views; this is only more so for secular Jews. However, even Jewish
secular culture is often strongly influenced by moral beliefs deriving
from Jewish scripture and tradition. Over the past century, Jews in
Europe and the Americas have traditionally tended towards the political
left, and played key roles in the birth of the labor movement as well as
socialism. While Diaspora Jews have also been represented in the
conservative side of the political spectrum, even politically
conservative Jews have tended to support pluralism more consistently
than many other elements of the political right. Some scholars attribute
this to the fact that Jews are not expected to proselytize, and as a
result do not expect a single world-state, which differs from the
beliefs of many religions, such as the Roman Catholic and Islamic
traditions. This lack of a universalizing religion is combined with the
fact that most Jews live as minorities in their countries, and that no
central Jewish religious authority has existed for over 2,000 years.
(See list of Jews in politics, which illustrates the diversity of Jewish
political thought and of the roles Jews have played in politics.)
There are also a number of Jewish secular organizations at the local,
national, and international levels. These organizations often play an
important part in the Jewish community. Most of the largest groups, such
as Hadassah and the United Jewish Communities, have an elected
leadership. No one secular group represents the entire Jewish community,
and there is often significant internal debate among Jews about the
stances these organizations take on affairs dealing with the Jewish
community as a whole, such as anti-Semitism and Israeli policies. In the
United States and Canada today, the mainly secular United Jewish
Communities (UJC), formerly known as the United Jewish Appeal (UJA),
represents over 150 Jewish Federations and 400 independent communities
across North America. Every major American city has its local "Jewish
Federation", and many have sophisticated community centers and provide
services, mainly health care-related. They raise record sums of money
for philanthropic and humanitarian causes in North America and Israel.
Other organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish
Congress, American Jewish Committee, American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, and the B'nai B'rith represent different segments of the
American Jewish community on a variety of issues.
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_political_movements
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