History

The General Jewish Labor Bund ("Association" in Yiddish) was a political party that created a mass social movement in Central and Eastern Europe in the first half of the 20th century, ultimately spreading its influence all over the world.

The Bund was founded in 1897 at a congress in Vilna as an integral part of the labor movement in the Russian Empire. Its first aim was to organize Jewish workers in their native language of Yiddish.

During the first years of its existence, the Bund (which organized both underground and in exile) faced a number of theoretical and practical questions, which were the subject of fierce internal and external debate.

Institutional discrimination against Jews, combined with increasingly frequent antisemitic pogroms, forced the Bund to fight back. Strikes and self-defense actions became increasingly frequent after 1903. When the 1905 Revolution breaks out, the Bund is made up of tens of thousands of activists, several times larger than the rest of Russian Social Democratic Party. The revolution fails, however, and the tsarist reaction nearly destroys the Bund completely.

The Bund organzined within the Russian Revolution in 1917, with many Bundists joining the Red Army. However, eventually under pressure from the Bolsheviks, the Bund dissolved into the newly formed Communist Party. After 1920, the Bund in Russia and Ukraine ceases to exist, mainly continuing in Poland.

In independent Poland, as a repressed yet legal party, the Bund concentrated on organizations that could build a mass movement: trade unions, people's kitchens, newspapers, cooperatives and self-defense squads. The Bund also creates sports, cultural, women's, youth and children's organizations. The Bund-aligned Central Yiddish School Organization (TSYSHO) school network builds a sanatorium for children at risk of tuberculosis near Warsaw.

On this basis, actively organizing in all spheres of Jewish life, fighting hard against antisemitism, cooperating with non-Jewish socialist parties, the Bund became the largest Jewish political force in Poland.

From the earliest days of the occupation, the Bund fights against Nazi terror. Across Poland, it organises underground cooperation with Polish socialists. Szmul Zygielbojm, a Bund activist in Warsaw, makes a public speech in which he calls on Jews to disobey the order establishing a Ghetto. Shortly afterwards, he escapes and joins the Polish Government in Exile in London. Together with other activists, he organises visas and raises funds for his comrades under occupation.

Not all activists manage to get out of Poland. Wiktor Alter and Henryk Erlich, two leaders of the Bund, are arrested by the NKVD after the USSR invades Poland. Alter is murdered on Stalin's orders, and Ehrlich is driven to suicide in prison.

After the start of mass deportations from Warsaw to Treblinka in 1942, Bundists join the nascent Jewish Combat Organisation (ŻOB). In the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the ZOB desperately resists for three weeks. The survivors escape through the sewers, including Marek Edelman, the last ZOB commander and a Bundist.

After the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, in protest at the lack of concrete action by the Allied governments against the Holocaust, Zygielbojm commits suicide.

With members scattered all over the globe, the World Coordinating Committee of the Bund is established in 1947. Under Stalinist conditions, the Bund is re-established by Holocaust survivors in Poland, but ultimately it has no chance of survival. Many activists leave, while the rest are forced to merge with the Communist party in 1949.

The monopolization of the idea of socialism by the USSR, the impossibility of Jewish autonomy behind the Iron Curtain, fanatical anti-communism in the USA (that negatively impacted all socialists), dispersal all over the world, the trauma of the Holocaust, the victory of rival Zionist movements culminating in the creation of the state of Israel — all these cause difficulties for the Bund's reconstruction in the 1940s and 1950s.

Most local organizations focus on internal activities — writing the history of the movement and its activists, maintaining a social space for people who grew up in pre-war Poland. Many Bundists lost their entire families during the Holocaust and — only their former comrades remain for them. Over time, they grow older and start to die out. Organizations often close down with the death of a particular activist.

While circles of former members and their descendants exist in the USA and other countries, the only organization of the Bund with an unbroken existance since the 1920s exists today in Melbourne, Australia. Its longevity lies in deep focus on its youth organisation (SKIF) and acting as the driving force behind Sholem Aleichem College (a secular day school where Yiddish is a mandatory subject) the Kadimah Jewish Cultural Centre, and the One Voice Festival.

Since the mid 2010's or so, there has been considerable interest generated in Jewish left circles — be they described as non-Zionist, anti-Zionist, or diasporist — in the history and legacy of the Jewish Labor Bund. More Jews have begun calling themselves Bundists, or neo-Bundists, including those with no familial connection to the movement. Others have taken to using terms and imagery associated with the Bund, such as 'Doikayt' or the shouting figure from the Bund's 1917 election poster.

However, for the longest time, few had the chutzpah to call for the re-establishment for the Bund as an international organization — let alone dare to do so. After all, anyone can claim to rebuild the Bund — but in order to actually be treated seriously, any new effort would have to gain legitimacy to represent the Bund's legacy — a colossal task.

In late 2023 — a moment which was not coincidental — this changed. A group of enthusiasts — some with familial connections to the Bund, some without — decided to re-establish the International Jewish Labor Bund. They wrote a short declaration, published a signup form, and set up social media accounts. Very quickly, a lot of interest was generated — within the first six months, there were over six hundred signups.

The people who signed up and got connected in a big Signal chat (which later became many Signal chats) came together from many different backgrounds. There were Yiddishists, Palestine Solidarity campaigners, labor organizers, academics, single-issue activists. There were people who'd learned about the Bund on their parents' knees, and people who found out about the Bund on Wikipedia last Thursday. There were self-described socialists, anarchists, communists, social democrats, all of the above, none of the above. For some, this was just another group or network to keep tabs on — for some, it was their life's mission. We were from all different ages, all different levels of organizing experience, all over the world. Almost no one knew each other before coming in — although once people did realize that there were other Bundists geographically close to them, they immediately began establishing connections offline.

As of May 2026, there are 7 Chapters and 9 Organizing Committee across the globe, totaling over 250 members. The Bund is rapidly growing with more chapters being established anywhere Jews in the Diaspora uphold the 3 pillars. While there remains an enormous amount of work to do to truly rebuild the Bund as a global revolutionary organization, we commit ourselves to the work until all are free in their own land.