On the evening of Sept. 16, New York’s YIVO Institute sponsored a massively attended panel discussion called “Bundism’s Influence Today.” The panel was diverse in age, but less so in viewpoint. The audience included an impressive number of engaged young Jews, but apparently few with sympathy for the Jewish state. Although the panel’s moderator, Prof. Jack Jacobs of CUNY, a respected scholar on the Jewish Workers’ Bund, said that he still hopes for a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, the program might have benefited from the participation of an actual left-Zionist.
One of my final pieces published at the Jewish Currents website, “The Bund Is Gone, But Its Anti-Zionist Critique Remains,” was about my participation in a five-session YIVO seminar on the Bund, taught by Prof. Jacobs early in 2018. During one session, I found myself denounced for expressing pro-Zionist convictions by none other than the individual who organized this panel, Spencer Sunshine. He remembered me from a conference we had both attended about 15 years ago (I actually didn’t remember him). Being unsettled by his hostility, I suggested we meet privately to discuss things further — an offer which he contemptuously spurned.
Spencer Sunshine (standing), Jack Jacobs, Jacob Pitman, Jenny Romaine, Molly Crabapple, Irena Klepfisz
The Third Narrative engages with people on the left who suspect that it is wrong to lay all blame for the Arab-Israeli conflict at the feet of Israeli Jews but feel that too many Israel supporters reflexively support –or passively accept—the Israeli occupation. When it comes to this conflict, the truth is rarely black or white; it resides in a gray area where advocates on either side typically don’t like to venture.. 
Did Plitman actually identify as anti-Zionist?
I do not believe so (you can see for yourself in the video). Regardless of how he identifies himself, he’s turned Jewish Currents into a one-sided anti-Zionist platform. If memory serves, the only Zionist or pro-Zionist he’s published since taking over is T’ruah’s Rabbi Jill Jacobs in a forum on JVP officially embracing anti-Zionism.
Thank you for your generous comments about me and my work. I appreciate them. I did not initiate this event, and did not play a role in choosing those who were on the panel. It is my understanding, however, that the intent of the evening was to have people who have been influenced by Bundism discuss how and why Bundist ideas have impacted upon them. I don’t agree that having ideological opponents of Bundism on this panel would have added to it. The event, f.y.i., has clearly struck a nerve. More than a thousand people watched the event video before it was posted to Facebook, and hundreds more have watched it since. I look forward to continuing our dialogue, and wish you a sweet new year.
Thanks Jack. Since the program was called “Bundism’s Influence Today,” and was bound to discuss Zionism, I think it would have been fully appropriate to have had one left-Zionist on the panel — not to argue as an ideological opponent, but to provide another perspective.
Jewish Currents recently ran a piece by Libby Lenkinski of the New Israel Fund (part of the Progressive Israel Network) on September 12 about Likud’s voter suppression. On September 5, JC ran a piece uncritically interviewing Etgar Keret, an Israel iwriter who receives lots of money from Israeli government and cultural institutions. He is, in fact, strongly opposed to any boycott of Israel – both BDS and even the settlements-only boycott. I criticized on JC’s FB page its omission of these salient facts, but hey, you got what you wanted, Ralph, in these two recent cases.
Bottom line, is, you continue to misrepresent JC as ‘anti-Zionist’ even though, time and time again, I have demonstrated this portrait to be false. It’s obvious you have a personal axe to grind here which is warping your perception of reality. Let me offer you Aiden Pink (of the Forward)’s more accurate description of JC as part of the “Israel-skeptic” Left.
Sheldon, the NIF uncovering dirt on Likud, or an interview with a left-liberal Israeli writer (even if he opposes BDS) is hardly an open door to pro-Zionist opinion. If you don’t see that JC has changed its receptivity to pro-Zionist voices, I can’t convince you otherwise. But by all means, feel free to criticize me at every opportunity.
The examples I cited show that your depiction of JC as a ‘one-sided anti-Zionist platform’ is false. It’s not Mondoweiss!! Mondoweiss would NEVER publish an article by Lenkinski or kvell over Keret.
Jewish Current s has not changed. Israel has. furshtayst?
Israel under Netanyahu’s leadership has not changed in the less than two years since JC’s editorship has changed. What’s changed is the steady diet of harsh anti-Zionist articles, without the opportunity for thoughtful responses, or even online comments. The diversity of opinion that Larry Bush and Ron Skolnik had cultivated at JC is as absent now as they are personally.
Israel HAS changed in the last several years under Netanyahu – for the worse. It sells weapons to neo-Nazis and has publlcly embraced right-wing anti-Semites and similar tyrants the world over. Netanyahu has engaged openly in Holocaust revisionism and his son drew a neo-Nazi cartoon attacking George Soros.
The opportunity for thoughtful responses may have been curtailed, but that cuts both ways. No one can respond to the “pro-Zionist” articles either (not counting its Facebook page, which accepts comments)
ralph, why should a left-wing zionist have been on the panel when the bund wasn’t zionist? it doesn’t even make sense. you’re free to organize an event on the influence of labor zionism or poale zion or whatever.
That’s one way of looking at it, Lazer, but as I responded to Prof. Jacobs, since this panel was bound to discuss Zionism (as it did), it would have been legitimate to have one panelist bringing a pro-Zionist perspective into the discussion.
those issues were discussed at the panel! it seems like you just have a bone to pick with jewish currents and weren’t even paying attention.
That’s my point. These issues were discussed by the panel, but without any pro-Zionist perspective.
“Since most American Zionist groups no longer emphasize making Aliya, we liberal Zionists are actually better described as pro-Zionist — as supporting Israel’s existence and security, but also the legitimacy and value of Jewish life in the Diaspora. Since we are, in fact, still “here,” the Bundist outlook has had something of a posthumous victory.”
This is odd to me. Take just one example: since 1979, the New Israel Fund has channeled $300 million to progressive causes in Israel. From a material standpoint, this is not connected to any form of ‘doykeit’ that I’m familiar with.
I hope you’re not against the New Israel Fund supporting progressive causes in Israel. Contributing money to the NIF is representative of what progressive American Zionists are most likely to do nowadays, rather than making Aliya. In the meantime, they are “here” supporting progressive causes in this country. They can do both at the same time.
Those young “neo-Bundists” should remember that the Bund never sought to dismantle the state of Israel once it was created. In fact, the Bund opened an Israeli chapter in the 1950s, as many Bundist Holocaust survivors had no other choice but to find refuge in Israel since no other country accepted to welcome them.
As I said earlier, young anti-Zionists (whether they are Jews or not) are not anti-Semitic, they are merely ignorant. Amos Oz once said that anti-Zionists sound as they believe that Jews who ended up in Palestine went to a travel agency and chose Palestine instead of the French Riviera. This is not what happened. Most Jews who went to Palestine were refugees who had nowhere else to go. If Jacob Pittman and Molly Crabapple really believe that the Jews should have died rather than going to Palestine, they should say so openly instead of hiding behind the Bund.
I agree with you, Bernard. But I’m sure that neither Jacob Plitman nor Molly Crabapple believe that Jewish refugees should have died rather than go to Palestine/Israel.
Agreed. But the onus is on them to explain what the Jews should have done to survive if they really believe that going to Palestine was a crime. They can’t have it both ways.
Also, these far-left anti-Zionists never miss an opportunity to argue that depriving the Palestinians of part of their land to create the state of Israel was an injustice. Fair enough. But leaving the Jews homeless is not fair either. This is why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is so complex. But for some reason, the radical left is unable to see that. It seems like only liberal Zionists (and a handful of Palestinian liberals such as Sari Nusseibeh and Mohamed Dajani) don’t live in a black and white world. It’s depressing…