Judaism and Socialism

[Viet Minh]

In my brief forays into Socialist history I've come across a lot of Jewish influence on leftist theory, from Anarchism to ML. I don't know much about Judaism (or leftism) so I just wanted to ask is there a connection between Judaism and Leftism, or is it mere coincidence? Or is it more of a social factor, ie Jews being discriminated against in Europe, and being largely the working class opressed? Discuss! :)

[hatzel]

It might be linked to stuff like this:


In the first few decades of the 20th Century the Jews of Hungary numbered roughly 5 percent of the population. This minority had managed to achieve great commercial success, and Jews were disproportionately represented in the professions, relative to their numbers.

In 1921 Budapest, 88% percent of the members of the stock exchange and 91% percent of the currency brokers were Jews, many of them ennobled. In interwar Hungary, more than half and perhaps as much as 90 percent of Hungarian industry was owned or operated by a few closely related Jewish banking families.

Jews represented one-fourth of all university students and 43% percent at Budapest Technological University. In 1920, 60 percent of Hungarian doctors, 51 percent of lawyers, 39 percent of all privately employed engineers and chemists, 34 percent of editors and journalists, and 29 percent of musicians identified themselves as Jews by religion.

For some reason...we're everywhere :lol: Or...we got about, let's just put it that way. I know that the stuff above is hardly leftist in nature, but there seems to be something (and people have written far too much trying to figure out what that something is :rolleyes:) that for some reason makes us...present in a wide variety of fields. So sure, the Jews were generally overrepresented in socialist movements, but I feel that if the comparison was made across people based on their social standing, their level of education etc...well, then I feel the difference wouldn't be so great. Something tells me that some peasant toiling to feed his family wouldn't have spent too much time reading and writing socialist theory :lol:

As for any link to the religion...well, you could always check Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_and_Orthodox_Judaism), but that kind of stuff didn't have much influence on the movement as a whole, as the vast majority of Jewish socialists (like tonnes of these guys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czarny_Sztandar)) had little if any connection to the religion. Still, some have suggested that there is a link between the importance given towards study in the Jewish faith 'primed' people for studying socialist theory :laugh: I don't know if I believe that, though...

[Tomhet]

I don't know much about this, but isn't the old testament the Jewish bible?
The old testament is a throughly reactionary and seemingly horrible text...
But I guess like all religions, there are the fundies...

[Sasha]

its related to the development of the jewish enlightenment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskalah, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_Mendelssohn) and the following jewish reform movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_movement_in_Judaism) that developed in the same time frame and location as the socialist movement.

in short; reform judaism encouraged critical thinking, self betterment and the breaking down of class barriers. Its logical that many jews that reaped the profits of this mindset developed this further in an post-enlightenment secular direction. Its then not a big step towards socialist ideas.

as rabbi_k points out, in the time that socialism blossomed in the central and western European academic enviroment there was an huge overrepresentation of "jews" in those academic circles, not only in overal numbers but especialy among those from an proletarian or petit-bourgois background. It was way more common under proletarian jews that one or more of the children advanced in education than under the non-jewish proletariat.

Also, because of the specific nature of the sort of jobs the jewish proletariat held (skilled jobs like diamoncutting, book-printing etc etc which often already had existing "social" labor federations) they where way more easy to unionize, and the syndicalist movement was offcourse an hotbed for all kind of socialist ideas

[hatzel]

I don't know much about this, but isn't the old testament the Jewish bible?
The old testament is a throughly reactionary and seemingly horrible text...
But I guess like all religions, there are the fundies...

Though, as the Wikipedia page I linked to mentioned...


A British Orthodox Rabbi Yankev-Meyer Zalkind, was an anarcho-communist, a close friend of the anarchist thinker Rudolf Rocker, and a very active anti-militarist. Rabbi Zalkind was also a prolific Yiddish writer and a prominent Torah scholar, who authored a few volumes of commentaries on the Talmud. He believed that the ethics of the Talmud, if properly understood, are closely related to anarchism.
The Kabbalist Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag believed in a religious version of libertarian communism, based on principles of Kabbalah, which he called altruist communism. Ashlag supported the Kibbutz movement and preached to establish a network of self-ruled internationalist voluntary communes, who would eventually dismantle the government and the system of law enforcement
Rabbi Abraham Yehudah Khein (1878–1957) [...] tried to relate his readings of Leo Tolstoy and Pyotr Kropotkin to Kabbalah and Hasidism. Rabbi Khein deeply respected Kropotkin, whom he called "the Tzadik of the new world", whose "soul is as pure as crystal"...etc. etc. :)

[Viet Minh]

I'm glad Rabbi mentioned Jews at University, because I was going to mention the Jewish Intellectual stereotype. :marx: :trotski: I'm not a fan of any sort of stereotypes, cultural, political or racial, but its hard to deny its basis..

Anyway the jewish religion (from the little I know) seems to have a lot about being enslaved and opressed, perhaps that underdog mentality if you will is part of the reason for their involvement in leftist politics?

[Tomhet]

Ok, how about the 'gods chosen people' bit mentioned in the Tanakh? How is that NOT throughly reactionary and exclusive???

[JerryBiscoTrey]

These verses in the Hebrew Bible have always caught my eye:

Exodus 16:16-18

16 This is the thing which HaShem hath commanded: Gather ye of it every man according to his eating; an omer a head, according to the number of your persons, shall ye take it, every man for them that are in his tent.'

17 And the children of Israel did so, and gathered some more, some less.

18 And when they did mete it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating.

(To each according to his own need?)

[hatzel]

Ok, how about the 'gods chosen people' bit mentioned in the Tanakh? How is that NOT throughly reactionary and exclusive???

You're posting on a forum where it is taken for granted that class struggle is the thing to do, that the proletariat alone can usher in an era of socialism...and you're talking to me about 'exclusive'? Sheesh, I never did understand this site :laugh:

Seriously, though, as you're the one making the claim, I think the onus is on you to a) define what is meant by 'chosen-ness' and b) explain why that is then reactionary :)

[ComradeMan]

Ok, how about the 'gods chosen people' bit mentioned in the Tanakh? How is that NOT throughly reactionary and exclusive???

Well- what does chosen people mean? The elect? Or does it mean those who have the most burden to carry in terms of Torah righteousness? The whole "chosen people" thing is a two-edged sword and it's not meant to mean that the Jews are "better" indeed, I believe it isn't- and anyone who is a "kosher snob" is in error as much as a non-Jew who says the Jews think they are better than others because they are the chosen people. I certainly never thought of it in terms of an Israelite master-race.


Now, I don't really buy the whole traditional chosen people argument and a lot of Jews don't either--- but still, I'll leave the rest to the Rabbi.

[28350]

Honestly, it has very little to do with Judaism as a religion, but rather the conditions and history of the Jewish people.

[hatzel]

Honestly, it has very little to do with Judaism as a religion, but rather the conditions and history of the Jewish people.

Of course :) Buuuuut on the other hand those anarchist rabbis presumably have something to do with the religion, and developing such an interpretation of the faith could prove invaluable in spreading socialism amongst religious Jews *blatantly biased statement :rolleyes:*

[Black Sheep]

Oh please! The existence of some Jewish leftists is an indication of the leftist nature of the Old Testament?

Honestly, it has very little to do with Judaism as a religion, but rather the conditions and history of the Jewish people.


This.Suppose an atheistic israeli people and then you'd see the number of lefties..

[graffic]

Judaism is a very open minded and intellectual religion. I think Jewish victim status also has a lot to do with it but thats a different topic about jewish history