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A review by mdaalder
Revolutionary Yiddishland: A History of Jewish Radicalism by Sylvie Klingberg, Alain Brossat
5.0
Knowing the context of this book is important to understanding its frame of reference: it was written by a pair of socialists in France in the 1980s. The new Verso edition is the first time the book has been translated into English, and it makes a fascinating read for me, a leftist Jew. The book is largely segmented by chapter, and although by paying careful attention you can trace the stories of specific individuals from the 1910s to the 1960s, it still reads best as a set of case studies.
These include the stories of three groups of leftist Jews before the Second World War, Poale Zion (the socialist Zionist group), the Bund (the anti-Zionist Jewish worker's organization), and the communists and socialists, mostly Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. They also include the Russian Revolution, and the changes that wracked both the Jews in the Soviet Union over the subsequent three decades and the Jews of eastern Europe. Of course, Revolutionary Yiddishland also makes sure to include the essential tales of the Jews who helped fight the Spanish Civil War, and participated in the anti-Nazi resistances in France, Poland, and elsewhere.
Accompanying all of these stories are true gems, amazing anecdotes about, for example, the Yiddish athletes who attended the anti-fascist Olympics in Barcelona in 1936, and then immediately joined the Spanish athletes on the barricades when Franco threw his putsch.
The book also makes an important point of recentering the focus of Jewish studies on the Jewish working class of eastern Europe, which far outnumbered the bourgeois Jews throughout Europe. The true story of the Jews of Europe, from the streets of St. Petersburg to the barricades of Barcelona to the mountains of the Alsace to the concentration camps of Poland, is the story of revolutionary Jewish workers, and Revolutionary Yiddishland tells that story.
These include the stories of three groups of leftist Jews before the Second World War, Poale Zion (the socialist Zionist group), the Bund (the anti-Zionist Jewish worker's organization), and the communists and socialists, mostly Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. They also include the Russian Revolution, and the changes that wracked both the Jews in the Soviet Union over the subsequent three decades and the Jews of eastern Europe. Of course, Revolutionary Yiddishland also makes sure to include the essential tales of the Jews who helped fight the Spanish Civil War, and participated in the anti-Nazi resistances in France, Poland, and elsewhere.
Accompanying all of these stories are true gems, amazing anecdotes about, for example, the Yiddish athletes who attended the anti-fascist Olympics in Barcelona in 1936, and then immediately joined the Spanish athletes on the barricades when Franco threw his putsch.
The book also makes an important point of recentering the focus of Jewish studies on the Jewish working class of eastern Europe, which far outnumbered the bourgeois Jews throughout Europe. The true story of the Jews of Europe, from the streets of St. Petersburg to the barricades of Barcelona to the mountains of the Alsace to the concentration camps of Poland, is the story of revolutionary Jewish workers, and Revolutionary Yiddishland tells that story.