Henry Maitles reviews The Radical Jewish Tradition: revolutionaries, resistance fighters and firebrands, by Donny Gluckstein and Janey Stone (Bookmarks, 2023).
Written pre-October 7, 2023, The Radical Jewish Tradition takes up some key arguments faced by anyone looking to understand the background to the Hamas attack and Israeli response, the deeper causal events in the middle east, as well as relevant issues of Jewish history. It challenges the notion that those who oppose Zionism are antisemitic.
The book is in four sections: ‘Firebrands: understanding the Jewish question’, ‘Revolutionaries: the Jewish radical tradition in history’, ‘Resistance Fighters: the Holocaust’, and ‘Palestine and today’. It sets out to demystify aspects of Jewish history and challenge the post-war conception of Jews as having eternally striven for an Israel. In so doing, the authors make several key arguments.
First, they argue that the heavy link between Jewishness and Zionism (the political philosophy underpinning the case for a Jewish homeland and the dominant ideology of Israeli governments and most Jews throughout the world today) is primarily a postWorld War Two phenomenon. Most Jews emigrating from Central and Eastern Europe before and during the war went west rather than to Palestine. In most major Jewish communities there had never been a longing for a return to Palestine. This is a myth of Zionism, and Gluckstein and Stone give figures to show it. Between 1901 and 1925, 27 times as many Jews took the long, more difficult and much more expensive route to USA as went to Palestine. Zionism had little appeal during this period. Indeed, until the Holocaust, the vast majority of the world’s Jews were non- or anti-Zionist. As late as 1938, Zionist leaders in Germany conceded that they were a minority among German Jews. Those Jews who did leave Germany under pressure from the Nazis tended to try to come west.
However, the mix of Stalinism, the Holocaust and Western immigration controls before, during and after World War Two convinced many Jews around the world that Zionism was a feasible solution. Even when they were non- or anti-Zionist, most Jews came to see Israel as a ‘lifeboat’ state. Holocaust survivor and author Primo Levi claimed in his last interview that, despite thinking of Israel as a ‘lifeboat state’, he considered “Italy totally my country, I felt myself an Italian citizen … I am not, and never have been, a Zionist”.1
The Zionist movement, bereft of mass support in the Jewish masses, thus allied itself to whatever imperialist power could further their aims. Before the First World war they had negotiated with the pogromist Russian government; then with the British, who thought a ‘loyal little ulster’ could be on the cards; and then post World War Two with the USA, hoping to play the role of a ‘watchdog’ in the area. Israel is supported by the West because it is useful to imperialism. It is important that we understand this, otherwise ideas of a powerful Jewish lobby can easily morph into antisemitism, akin to the infamous forgery ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, which detailed a worldwide Jewish all-class conspiracy against gentiles.
The second key argument that Gluckstein and Stone make is that, because of the racism and discrimination they faced, many Jews were attracted to parties of the left and, indeed, often formed disproportionate numbers of radical movements. This strong leftist tradition within world Jewry continued right through to World War Two. To give an example, it has been estimated that 9,000 of the 50,000 International Brigaders who fought for democracy and against fascism in the Spanish Civil War (1936—1939) were Jewish, and that 50% of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade from the US were Jewish.2 The memorial park in Montjuic in Barcelona records that 17% of international brigaders who died were Jewish.
This radical tradition involved immigrants and their children in anti-fascist campaigns in the UK, culminating in a mass confrontation with the British Union of Fascists and the police in Cable Street in the East End of London in 1936. The book explains how Jewish activists, particularly those in the Communist Party and Labour Party, helped mobilise communities, including Irish immigrants and the trade union movement, in a united campaign against fascism. Similar processes happened in Scotland.3 Chapters on Jewish involvement in struggles across the world – particularly in USA – illuminate how Jewish radicals involved themselves in left parties and trade unions wherever they went.
Thirdly, Gluckstein and Stone argue that Zionism is inherently settler colonialist and racist and that this includes even left Zionism. For example, in 1943 left Zionists were heavily involved in ZOB (the Jewish Fighting Organisation of the Warsaw Ghetto), with its spirit of internationalism and anti-fascism. Yet left Zionists were also the main force in the Haganah (the left Jewish militia in Palestine) which was 20 times larger than the right wing Irgun and Stern Gang and was thus the major force involved in the Nakba – the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948. The elite Haganah force, Palmach, were recruited directly from the left Zionist kibbutzim and went into the ethnic cleansing with left books and articles in their packs. They saw themselves as fighting for socialism in Palestine. Glukstein and Stone argue that in Europe their leftness was the major impacting factor whereas, once in Palestine, their Zionism and the racism inherent in it was key. The left wanted a ‘nicer’ racial state than the right, but still wanted a racial state. The left-leaning kibbutz movement reflected the racism: no one asked whose land the kibbutz was on. For the first 25 years of Israel’s existence, the left Zionists were in government and elicited support from both cold war camps across the world in the aftermath of the Holocaust. However, Israel’s post-1948 government knew that their best interests were in offering a stable, pro-western government. With US and western support, they would become the ‘watchdog’ for Western interests.
Although recent events in Gaza and Lebanon took place after this book was written, it helps us understand the three main responses from Jews around the world. Some have become convinced that a further round of harsh ethnic cleansing is the only solution to the Palestinian ‘problem’, with many arguing that the Palestinians should be scattered as refugees all over the world. Now they have support from Trump, who has supported the call from the Israeli far right for the total ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Most Jews wish to return to pre-7 October 2023 Israel – an apartheid state with elements of formal democracy. There is though, a third group – growing and predominantly young – who want justice for Palestine. These Jews are on demonstrations every week in cities round the world and are campaigning in their communities and trade unions for this end.
Henry Maitles is emeritus professor of education at the University of the West of Scotland.
- Jewish Telegraph Agency: https://www.jta.org/archive/primo-levi-never-a-zionist-called-israel-life-raft-of-jews ↩︎
- Brossat, A. and Klingberg, S. (2016): Revolutionary Yiddishland (London: Verso) ↩︎
- Maitles, H. (2003): Blackshirts Across The Border: The British Union Of Fascists In Scotland, Scottish Historical Review, 213 pp92-100. ↩︎