Jewish political movements

Jewish political movements refer to the organized efforts of

siege of Jerusalem by the Romans to the foundation of Israel the Jewish people had no territory, and, until the 19th century 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. (See Judaism and politics.)^{[citation needed}

]

Birth of Jewish political movements

Since Jews were excluded as 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,

man of letters

revealed hitherto unsuspected possibilities of integration and acceptance of Jews among non-Jews.

The changes caused by the Haskalah movement coincided with rising revolutionary movements throughout Europe. Despite these movements, only France, Britain, 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.^{[citation needed]}

Emancipation movements

During the early stages of

Lionel Nathan Rothschild were active with the general movement towards liberty and political freedom.^{[citation needed}

]

Still, in the face of persistent

Alliance Israelite Universelle founded by Adolphe Crémieux, all began working to assure the freedom of the Jews throughout the middle of the 19th century.^{[citation needed}

]

Socialist and Labor movements

Frustration with the slow pace of Jewish acceptance into European society, and a revolutionary

Saint-Simon, preached the emancipation of the Jews. Moses Hess played a role in introducing Karl Marx (who was descended from a long line of rabbis) and Friedrich Engels to historical materialism. The Jewish Ferdinand Lassalle, founded the first actual workers' party in Germany, the General German Workers' Association (which ultimately merged with other parties to become the Social Democratic Party of Germany) and made Jewish emancipation one of his goals. ^{[citation needed}

]

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

territorialist) Zionist Socialist Workers Party and the Jewish Socialist Workers Party, which united their destinies in 1917 as the United Jewish Socialist Workers Party. Another left-wing Russian Jewish party was the Jewish Social Democratic Labour Party (Poalei Zion).^{[citation needed}

]

Zionist movements

The aim of Zionism was to set up a secular state in the vicinity of the Biblical

Labour Zionism and one of the intellectual forebears of the kibbutz movement. Others like Rabbi Zvi Kalischer viewed a return to the Jewish homeland as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy through natural means.^{[citation needed}

]

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) increased. Starting with the state-sponsored massive

Dreyfus Affair in France in 1894, Jews were profoundly shocked to see the continuing extent of antisemitism from Russia to France, a country which they thought of as the home of enlightenment and liberty.^[1]

In reaction to the first,

Judah Leib Pinsker published the pamphlet Auto-Emancipation on 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 an assimilationist, but after seeing how France treated its loyal Jewish subjects, he proposed building a separate Jewish state. In 1897 Herzl organized the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, which founded the World Zionist Organization (WZO) and elected Herzl as its first President. After the state's establishment Zionism, in its various forms, would become the largest Jewish political movement, although more Jews would participate in the national politics of the countries in which they resided.^{[citation needed}

]

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 did not survive the Shoah, the Holocaust.^{[citation needed]}

Territorialists

The territorialists, who had split from the Zionists after the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905, called for creation of a sufficiently large and compact Jewish territory (or territories), not necessarily in the

Freeland League, held anti-authoritarian socialist views, as well as his close friend Erich Fromm, who supported Steinberg's territorialist ideas.^{[citation needed}

]

Anarchists

While the Jews in general played an important role in the international anarchist movements, many Jewish anarchists actively promoted

Isaac Nachman Steinberg and Gustav Landauer, were religious or religiously inclined and often referred to the Torah, Talmud and other traditional Judaic sources, claiming that anarchist ideas are deeply rooted in the Jewish tradition. The Jewish anarchists believe that in the stateless, free and diverse anarchist society the Jews would have more opportunities to express their individual and cultural autonomy. Many Jewish anarchists, while promoting universal internationalist values, had actively participated in the development of the Yiddish culture and Jewish community life. ^{[citation needed}

]

There was some intersection between the Jewish anarchist,

peace and Palestinian solidarity actions.^{[citation needed}

]

Modern Jewish political movements

Zionism continues to be the central trans-national political movement of most 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.^[citation needed]

In Israel

Outside Israel

In the 20th century, Jews in Europe and the Americas traditionally tended towards the

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

American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Zionist Organization of America, Americans for a safe Israel, B'nai B'rith and Agudath Israel represent different segments of the American Jewish community on a variety of issues.^{[citation needed}

]

The 21st century has brought changes in the political leanings of Jewish communities in the diaspora. In the U.S. and Canada, the two largest Jewish diaspora communities, voters are shifting from liberal to more conservative leanings. In 2011, an Ipsos Reid exit poll of voters in the federal election of Canada found that 52 per cent of Jewish voters supported the Conservatives, 24 per cent the Liberals and 16 per cent the NDP, reflecting " an enormous shift in voter preference among Canadian Jews." The shift appears to reflect an alignment with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition government and its views on Israel's security.[2] The Jewish community in Great Britain is also leaning conservative in the 21st century as a poll published by the Jewish Chronicle in early 2015 shows. Of British Jews polled, 69% would vote for the Conservative Party, while 22% would vote for the Labour Party. This is in stark contrast to the rest of the voter population, which according to a BBC poll had Conservatives and Labor almost tied at about a third each. Jews have typically been a part of the British middle class, traditional home of the Conservative Party, though the number of Jews in working class communities of London is in decline. The main voting bloc of poorer Jews in Britain now, made up primarily of ultra-Orthodox, votes "en masse" for the Conservatives. Attitudes toward Israel influence the vote of three out of four of British Jews.^[3]^[4]

References

^ Weinberg, Robert. The Revolution of 1905 in Odessa: Blood on the Steps. 1993, p. 164.
^ How the political shift among Jewish voters plays in Canada, The Globe and Mail, 28 September 2011
^ Huge majority of British Jews will vote Tory, JC poll reveals The JC.com, 7 April 2015
^ How Ed Miliband Lost Britain's Jewish Voters The Jewish Daily Forward, 8 April 2015

David Vital, A People Apart: A Political History of the Jews in Europe 1789-1939, Oxford University Press, 2001.
A special issue of the journal Labyrinthe. Atelier interdisciplinaire (in French) has been devoted to the issue: Des Juifs contre l'émancipation. De Babylone à Benny Lévy [Jews Against Emancipation: From Babylon to Benny Lévy] (2007). Editorial available online.

External links

Israel's Judaic Politics: Profiling the Predominantly Religious Jewish PartiesIslamOnline.net, retrieved on 19-03-2009.
My Jewish Learning on Jewish Political Movements
URJ Emancipation information
From Bolshevism to Bush: Exploring the Political Trajectory of the Jewish People by Walter Leon, June 25, 2009

[1] Weinberg, Robert. The Revolution of 1905 in Odessa: Blood on the Steps. 1993, p. 164.

[2] How the political shift among Jewish voters plays in Canada, The Globe and Mail, 28 September 2011

[3] Huge majority of British Jews will vote Tory, JC poll reveals The JC.com, 7 April 2015

[4] How Ed Miliband Lost Britain's Jewish Voters The Jewish Daily Forward, 8 April 2015

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