| Bundist Counterculture Interwar Poland Subjects: Jews -- Poland -- Social conditions -- 20th century; Jewish youth -- Poland -- Societies and clubs -- History -- 20th century; Jewish socialists -- Poland -- History -- 20th century; Poland -- Ethnic relations; Ogólny Zydowski Zwiazek Robotniczy “Bund” w; In the years between the two world wars, the Jewish community of Poland--the largest in Europe--was the cultural heart of the Jewish diaspora. The Jewish Workers' Bund, which had a socialist, secularist, Yiddishist, and anti-Zionist orientation, won a series of important electoral battles in Poland on the eve of the Second World War and became a major political party. Many earlier works on the politics of Polish Jewry have suggested that Bundist victories were ephemeral or attributable to outside forces. Jack Jacobs, however, argues convincingly that the electoral success of the Bund was linked to the long-term efforts of the constellation of cultural, educational, and other movements revolving around the party. The Bundist movements for children, youth, and women, and for physical education offered highly innovative programs and promoted countercultural values. Jack Jacobs is professor of political science at the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY), and professor of government at CUNY's John Jay College. He is the author of On Socialists and "The Jewish Question" after Marx and editor of Jewish Politics in Eastern Europe: The Bund at 100. |