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54. “The Jewish Militant” (1906)
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286 | 54 “The Jewish Militant” (1906) Der yidisher kemfer In 1906, the socialist-Zionist party Poale Tsion began publishing the weekly Der yidisher kemfer. Its statement of principles, excerpted here, was probably written by the newspaper’s editor, Kalman Marmor, later an important figure in the Communist movement. [. . .] The Jewish militant faces a difficult struggle to liberate the Jew from his dual suffering as both a Jew and a human being. Even so, he will break down the walls of the old ghetto and those of the new ghetto,1 and unite with freedom fighters of all nations to struggle for the equal rights of all people, regardless of sex, color, and nationality, and for the humanization of all people and their unification in one large family of peoples—humanity! The motto of all militants is, “In struggle shall your freedom be achieved!” And “If I am not for myself, who will be?” Every person must fight for his own freedom. Working-class freedom will be attained by the militant worker, women’s emancipation by the militant woman, and Jewish freedom by the Jewish militant. The Jewish militant is a Zionist-Socialist. He is a Zionist because he is a Jew—a devoted child of Israel—and Zionism is the only means to free the Jewish people from its national suffering. He is a socialist because he is a proletarian—an organic part of suffering humanity—and socialism is the only means to liberate humanity from its social suffering. The Jewish militant is not a Zionistic socialist. [. . .] There is no such thing as a Zionistic socialism, just as there is no such thing as a Jewish socialism or a Russian, Polish, or Lithuanian socialism. Socialism is international, an international means to improve and beautify human life and, ultimately, to liberate it completely from all social suffering. And if socialism becomes dependent on various national forms, then only the form changes; the content remains and must remain international. “The Jewish Militant” | 287 The Jewish militant is also not a Socialistic Zionist. The Zionist movement is a national movement to liberate the entire Jewish nation regardless of where and under which political and economic conditions various Jewish national communities find themselves today. The world is divided between nations—therefore the Jewish militant wants to have his national rights, his voice heard in parliaments of other peoples; every people has its own land, and therefore the Jews want to have their own land, the Land of Israel. Other peoples speak various languages; thus, the Jewish people wants respect for Yiddish and recognition of Hebrew. Every people has its own literature and art; thus, the Jewish militant wants his people to have its own literature and the Jewish artist to create as a son of the Jewish people. The Jewish militant, therefore, walks hand in hand with the nonsocialist Zionists regarding all Jewish national questions and diverges from them when it comes to social questions. And, likewise, the Jewish militant walks together with nonnationalist socialists regarding all social questions and diverges from them when it comes to Jewish national questions. If the Jewish people had its own country, then the Jewish militant would be a socialist internationalist, rather than a Zionist, because he could be most useful to humanity from the position of his own national soil. But as long as the Jewish people is dispersed throughout all corners of the world, the Jewish militant has within himself a divided soul, two souls, and he must be more than a socialist among fellow socialists and more than a Zionist among fellow Zionists. Source: “Der yidisher kemfer,” Der yidisher kemfer, Mar. 30, 1906, p. 4. Translated by Tony Michels. Notes 1. It is not clear what the author means by “the new ghetto,” but he could be referring to poor immigrant enclaves, such as the Lower East Side, often described as ghettos. ...