Borochov, Ber (1881-1917)
Ber
Borochov, Socialist Zionist leader
I . His Life
Born in the Ukraine, Ber Borochov was educated in a Russian high school.
A good student, he was attracted by the revolutionary socialist trends
of the time. Like most Jewish high school graduates, he was denied the
chance to study at a Russian university. He was largely self-educated
and spoke several languages.
In 1901, his interests in Jewish problems led him to establish the Zionist
Socialist Workers Union. Active in Jewish self-defense, the organization
was opposed by both the Russian Social Democrats and some of the Zionist
leaders who disapproved of the combination of Zionism and socialism.
During the controversy about the possibility of settling Jews in Uganda,
Borochov joined with Menahem Ussishkin in opposing any territory other
than Eretz Yisrael. At the Seventh Zionist Congress (1905), Borochov led
a faction of the Poalei Zion delegates who opposed the Uganda option.
At the Eighth Zionist Congress, two years later, he was instrumental in
the withdrawal of Russian Poalei Zion from the Zionist Organization. From
then until the beginning of World War I, he publicized the aims of the
World Union of Poalei Zion in Western and Central Europe.
In 1914 Ber Borochov arrived in the United States, where he was the
spokesman for the American Poalei Zion and for the World and American
Jewish Congress movements. When the Russian Revolution began, he returned
to Russia and helped formulate the demands of the Jewish people for the
postwar world order. He was intensely involved in public activities leading
up to the October Revolution. In August 1917, he addressed the Russian
Poalei Zion Conference and called for socialist settlement in Eretz Yisrael.
Borochov was on a speaking tour on behalf of Poalei Zion when he contracted
pneumonia and died in Kiev. In 1963, his remains were reinterred in the
cemetery at Kibbutz Kinneret, alongside the other founders of Socialist
Zionism.
II . His Accomplishments
A scholar of the Jewish people's history, economic structure, language
and culture, Borochov - who was largely self-educated - was a brilliant
analyst whose main theoretical contribution was the synthesis of class
struggle and nationalism at a time when Marxist theory rejected all nationalism
- particularly Jewish nationalism. He viewed the mass migration of Jews
as the inevitable expression of the inner drive of the Jewish proletariat
to solve the problems created by living in the Diaspora. He argued that
only pioneering efforts in Eretz Yisrael could prevent the continuation
of the Diaspora.
His outlook was universal at a time when others were dogmatic and parochial.
He sought to determine the hidden roots of the Jewish problem which, he
said, stemmed from the fact that the Jewish people were divorced from
their homeland. His astute analysis of the effects of the Diaspora on
the Jewish people included the effects of assimilation, dividing Jewish
strength, and ultimately intensifying tension between Jews and non-Jews.
While aware of the threats of anti-Semitism, Borochov did not see anti-Semitism
as the basis or motivation of Zionism. Rather, he saw the Diaspora as
an aberration which made Jews economically inferior and politically helpless.
He saw "auto-emancipation" or self-liberation as the only way to solve
the Jewish problem. Specifically, by following the path of socialist internationalism,
Jews would find their way out of the Diaspora.
For Borochov, Zionism and socialism were interrelated. He argued that
they served the same purpose: to make Jewish life productive again. The
first step was to enable Jewish migration to go to a "new territory" in
Eretz Yisrael. He considered the Jewish worker as the pioneer of the Jewish
future.
Borochov began writing in 1902 at the height of the Uganda debate. His
political work concerned topics ranging from the role of the Jewish labor
movement to the social implications of mass Jewish migration. He was also
a contributor to the Russian Jewish Encyclopedia and compiled a bibliography
of 400 years of Yiddish research.
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