Jabotinsky's Children: Polish Jews and the Rise of Right-Wing Zionism - Hardcover

Heller, Daniel Kupfert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 069117475X ISBN 13: 9780691174754

Verlag: Princeton University Press, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

By the late 1930s, as many as fifty thoUSnd Polish Jews belonged to Betar, a youth movement known for its support of Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of right-wing Zionism. Poland was not only home to Jabotinsky's largest following. The country also served as an inspiration and incubator for the development of right-wing Zionist ideas. Jabotinsky's Children draws on a wealth of rare archival material to uncover how the young people in Betar were instrumental in shaping right-wing Zionist attitudes about the roles that authoritarianism and military force could play in the quest to build and maintain a Jewish state.Shedding critical light on a vital yet neglected chapter in the history of Zionism, Jabotinsky's Children provides invaluable perspective on the origins of right-wing Zionist beliefs and their enduring allure in Israel today.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Daniel Kupfert Heller is assistant professor of Jewish studies at McGill University.

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"In this brilliant and pioneering book, Daniel Heller has produced the first social history of right-wing Zionism. Decentering the Revisionist Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky, Heller presents Revisionism in interwar Poland and Palestine as in constant negotiation between the leader and his base, and between youth and their elders. Heller's analysis of the conditions under which Zionists come to embrace the authoritarian Right has striking contemporary as well as historical relevance."--Derek J. Penslar, author of Jews and the Military: A History

"An exceptionally valuable, innovative, and original work, Jabotinsky's Children is a very important contribution to the history of Zionism, Polish Jewry, and the Israeli Right. Heller writes with great sophistication and historical intuition."--Anita Shapira, author of Ben-Gurion: Father of Modern Israel

"An original work on the Zionist Right and a real contribution to this expanding area of scholarship. Heller teases out interpretations of Jabotinsky's political behavior that have hitherto been shrouded in a fog."--Colin Shindler, author of The Rise of the Israeli Right

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Jabotinsky's Children

Polish Jews and the Rise of Right-Wing Zionism

By Daniel Kupfert Heller

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2017 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-691-17475-4

Contents

List of Illustrations, vii, 
Acknowledgments, ix, 
Note on Terms, xiii, 
Introduction, 1, 
1 Jabotinsky Encounters Polish Jewish Youth, 28, 
2 Little Fascists?, 68, 
3 Obedient Children, Reckless Rebels, 104, 
4 Poland, Palestine, and the Politics of Belonging, 133, 
5 Taming the Shtetl, 167, 
6 Terror, 201, 
Epilogue, 237, 
Notes, 255, 
Bibliography, 291, 
Index, 313, 

CHAPTER 1

Jabotinsky Encounters Polish Jewish Youth

ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1927, the train carrying Vladimir Jabotinsky arrived at six o'clock in the morning to Dworzec Wiedenski, a vast, palatial train station in the heart of Warsaw. Crowds of the city's Jews had begun to fill the platform an hour and a half beforehand. By the time he arrived, the entire station was packed with his admirers. Over the course of five weeks, as he wound his way through central Poland and Galicia, delivering speech after speech in Wloclawek, Sowiniec, Lodz, Krakow, and Lwow, Jabotinsky reported the same scenario to his wife, Anya: "The trip is continuing as it began — the masses await at the train stations, the halls are full, and it seems to me like there is success." He took special notice of the throngs of young Jews following his every move. In the industrial city of Bialystok, which lay on the edge of an immense forest, he recounted, "on the streets, there are thousands of youth screaming, 'Long Live Jabotinsky!'" In a city nearly two hundred miles northeast, known in Yiddish as Vilne and famed for its vibrant Jewish religious, political and cultural life, he recalled how "over the course of a long hour, the crowds paraded me through the streets. Masses of youth shouted, 'Hooray!'"

The excitement Jabotinsky expressed to friends and family about young Polish Jews would have been a welcome break from his frequently tortured letters concerning the Union of Revisionist Zionists' financial woes and inability to recruit members since its founding two years beforehand. If the letters' recipients were indeed relieved, they would have been all the more surprised by Jabotinsky's enthusiasm for Polish Jewish youth. Despite Poland being home to Europe's largest Jewish population, the Revisionist movement's protocols rarely made reference to the country prior to Jabotinsky's trip. Youth were similarly on the fringes of the Revisionist movement's political map. Until Jabotinsky's arrival in Poland in the winter of 1927, neither he nor any members of the Revisionist Executive in Paris had undertaken any serious initiatives to develop youth movements. Yet by the year's end, Jabotinsky considered Poland a Revisionist heartland, its Jewish youth his most important disciples.

This was more than just a shift in geographic orientation. One week into his trip, he confided to Anya that he was encountering not only scores of new supporters but a mode of political behavior that differed dramatically from his own:

There is something unpleasant — I've felt it for some time now, and now I'm beginning to be frightened by it ... they are beginning to transform me into a myth: "that man who" ... My chubby body and my bald spot leave no impression. ... Worst of all, this myth is beginning to transform into a legend about a "leader" [Duce] ... I fear, more and more, that precisely this will bring us to "power" (God help us!), not a way of thought, and not a program, but rather panic about the lack of success in Palestine, and the stupid legend about the new rebbe [a rabbi of a Hasidic dynasty] who performs miracles. Even ruling through accepted ways is repulsive enough. ... And already, there is nothing to be done. ... And on the other hand, perhaps all this will increase our longevity?

Jabotinsky's confession was, in part, an acknowledgment of his failed attempts to achieve substantial support by other means. At the founding of his movement, he insisted that Revisionism's appeal lay in its rational, logical critique of the Zionist Organization and its leader, the brilliant chemist Chaim Weizmann. Myths and slogans could serve as the handmaidens of modern politics, but journalism and public debate would be the key to political success. It was not surprising, then, that Jabotinsky's early recruitment efforts for the Revisionist movement focused primarily on members of the Jewish intelligentsia — whether émigrés from Russia living in Berlin and Paris, university students in Vienna, or journalists and politicians in Salonika who were educated in the westernized French-language schools of the Alliance Israélite Universelle. In Jabotinsky's imagination, Polish Jews, with their appetite for myths and hero worship, were of an entirely different nature. By likening politically active Polish Jewish youth to supplicants of rebbes, the spiritual wonder workers and leaders of the Hasidic movement, the devoutly secular Jabotinsky branded them as proponents of a traditional, "backwards" past.

At the same time, however, Jabotinsky's brief reference to being perceived as a Duce linked Polish Jewish youth to a new mode of politics gaining popularity across Europe. Politicians increasingly believed the political choices of ordinary people were guided by emotion rather than reason, a preference for aesthetics over ideas, and a desire for a strong leader. Politics had to be no longer intellectually sound but emotionally appealing. The politics of emotion had been a crucial component of nineteenth-century romantic nationalism and the mass electoral politics that emerged in western and central Europe at the turn of the twentieth century. The recent years of war and revolution made political elites in the 1920s all the more alert to the power of mass politics. Far from the preserve of fascists or communists, mobilizing the passions, rather than the intellects, of their intended recruits was given pride of place by politicians across the political spectrum. Torch-lit processions, tumultuous rallies, sporting events, and other public spectacles were designed to project an image of unity and strength, and to awaken the passionate loyalty of participants and spectators alike. Youth movements became a critical means for political activists to cultivate these political practices. With hundreds of young Polish Jews awaiting his arrival at train stations across the country, proclaiming him their leader, Jabotinsky came face to face with this new mode of politics.

The young Jews who greeted Jabotinsky not only enticed him to consider recasting his style of political leadership. They also revealed to him that Poland's political scene, and Polish nationalism in particular, was exerting a profound influence on their self-image as Zionists, as well as on their expectations of the Revisionist movement. Their attitudes toward socialism, militarism, and authoritarian leadership were inspired in part by Jozef Pilsudski's recently established Sanacja regime. Over the course of his trip to Poland, Jabotinsky became convinced that there was much to be gained by aligning the Revisionist movement's political platform with these attitudes.

Uncovering the story of Betar's establishment in Poland, this chapter explores how Jabotinsky's encounters with Polish Jewish youth not only changed the geographic orientation of his political activism, but also transformed how he conceived of his role as a leader...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 069117475X
• ISBN 13: 9780691174754
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Princeton University Press; https://press.princeton.edu/books; ; 7th Floor, New South Building; PRINCETON; NJ; 8544; USA
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar