Anarchism has been an undercurrent in the
politics of Palestine and Israel for over
a century.
== Early Kibbutz movement ==
The anarchist ideology arrived in Palestine
at the beginning of the 20th century, carried
by a big wave of emigrants from Eastern Europe
(Russia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Poland).
The ideas of Peter Kropotkin and Leo Tolstoy
had remarkable influence on famous exponents
of some Left Zionists, such as Yitzhak Tabenkin,
Berl Katznelson, and Mark Yarblum.
The organizer of the Jewish self-defense movement,
Joseph Trumpeldor, who later became a hero
of the Israeli right, was very close to anarcho-syndicalism
and even declared himself an anarcho-communist.
Anarchism has also had some influence on the
constitution of socio-political movements
such as Poalei Zion, Tzeirei Zion, HeHalutz,
and Gdud HaAvoda.
The early kibbutz movement was libertarian
socialist in nature.
At that time, many leftist Zionists rejected
the idea of establishing a Jewish nation-state
and promoted Jewish-Arab cooperation.The anarchists
in Palestine at the beginning of the century,
nearly all coming from Eastern Europe, did
not have connections with the powerful Yiddish
anarchist movement and had adopted the Hebrew
language, which was unpopular among the European
Jewish anarchists, many of whom opposed all
forms of Zionism and supported the grassroots
Yiddish culture of the Ashkenazi Jewry.
In the 1920s and 1930s all lived on the kibbutz:
for example, the famous anarchist Aharon Shidlovsky
was one of the founders of the kibbutz Kvutzat
Kinneret.
During the Spanish Revolution many anarchists
of Palestine rushed to Spain in order to fight
against Franco and fascism in the ranks of
the libertarian CNT-FAI militia.
The Austrian-Jewish anti-authoritarian philosopher
Martin Buber settled in Jerusalem in 1938.
Buber considered himself a "cultural Zionist".
He rejected the idea of Jewish nationalism
and was a staunch supporter of a bi-national
solution in Palestine.
While many Jewish anarchists were irreligious
or sometimes vehemently anti-religious, there
were also a few religious anarchists and pro-anarchist
thinkers, who combined contemporary radical
ideas with the traditional anarchistic trends
in Kabbalah and Hasidism (see Anarchism and
Orthodox Judaism.
The Orthodox Kabbalist rabbi Yehuda Ashlag,
who moved to Palestine in 1921, believed in
voluntary communism, based on the principles
of Kabbalah.
Ashlag supported the Kibbutz movement and
preached to establish a network of self-ruled
internationalist communes, who would eventually
annul the brute-force regime completely, for
“every man did that which was right in his
own eyes.”, because there is nothing more
humiliating and degrading for a person than
being under the brute-force government [1].
However, most of the contemporary followers
of Ashlagian Kabbalah seem to ignore the radical
teachings of their rebbe.
== Anarchism in the State of Israel ==
A little before and immediately after the
constitution of the State of Israel, in 1948,
there was an influx of western European anarchist
survivors of Nazism, educated in Yiddish,
and among them, anarchism had a specific and
visible presence.
Between the end of the 1940s and the beginning
of the 1950s, Polish immigrants formed an
anarchist group in Tel Aviv whose main exponent
was Eliezer Hirschauge, author of a book on
the history of the Polish anarchist movement
published in 1953.
Beginning in the 1950s, Israeli anarchism
makes reference to Abba Gordin (1887–1964),
writer and philosopher, one of the more remarkable
representatives of the Yiddish anarchist movement.
Gordin had been the inspirer of the pan-Russian
anarchist movement and one of the organizers
of the Anarchist Federation of Moscow (1918).
From 1925, he lived in New York, where he
had emigrated and where he published a literary
philosophical review, Yiddishe Shriften (1936–1957),
as well as being a habitual contributor to
the most long-lived anarchist periodical in
the Yiddish language, the Freie Arbeiter Stimme
(1890–1977).
In 1958, Abba Gordin moved to Israel, and
in Tel Aviv, founded a Yiddish anarchist circle,
"Agudath Schochrei Chofesh" (ASHUACH), with
a library of classic anarchist works in Yiddish,
Hebrew, and Polish, and with a large hall
for meetings and conferences.
He also began to publish a bilingual monthly
review (in Yiddish and Hebrew), Problemen/Problemot,
which he directed from 1959 to 1964.
During this period, ASHUACH had approximately
150 members and drew hundred of people to
conferences on the philosophy of anarchism.
Among the more debated topics: the spiritual
roots of anarchism and the connections between
anarchism, the Book of the Prophets (Neviim),
and the Kabbalah.
Problemen published stories and articles on
the history of anarchism, Hasidic legends,
medieval Jewish literature and the current
problems of Yiddish literature.
After the death of Abba Gordin, from 1964
to 1971 the review was directed by Shmuel
Abarbanel.
In 1971, Joseph Luden (born in Warsaw, 1908)
took his place and affiliated the review with
a publishing house that published fifteen
or so books and pamphlets of fiction and poetry,
all in Yiddish.
Therefore, since Problemen came to be solely
in Yiddish, it lost the Hebrew half of its
title.
The number of pages went from 24 to 36.
ASHUACH came to a halt in the 1980s.
The old anarchists died one after the other
and none of the young ones knew Yiddish.
The last issue of Problemen was published
in December 1989 (it was the one-hundred-and-sixty-fifth
issue).
Subsequently, Joseph Luden tried to share
with one new review, Freie Stimme, in order
to continue the tradition of Problemen, but
only printed a single issue in September,
1991.
This was the last Yiddish anarchist periodical
publication in the world.
== Contemporary anarchist movement ==
The contemporary anarchist movement in Israel
is small, but sectors of it are very active.
A good proportion of these anarchists actively
participate in Palestinian solidarity, peace
and environmentalist movements.
Uri Gordon, the Israeli activist, lecturer
and author of Anarchy Alive: Anti-Authoritarian
Politics from Practice to Theory (Pluto Press),
has written a supportive article on Israeli
anarchists in The Jerusalem Post, Right of
Reply: Anarchy in the Holy Land!, published
June 12, 2007, in response to an anti-anarchist
item by Jerusalem Post writer Elliot Jaeger,
Power and Politics: Anarchy has its place,
published on May 23, 2007.
One Struggle (Ma'avak Ehad) is a social anarchist
affinity group in Israel.
== See also ==
Anarchists Against the Wall
Anarchism and Orthodox Judaism
== References ==
The History portion up to the 1980s is based
on The Yiddish anarchist press in Israel written
by Moshe Goncharok and translated by Jesse
Cohn from Archivio G. Pinelli, Bollettino
15.
== Bibliography ==
Joseph Nedava, "Abba Gordin: A portrait of
a Jewish anarchist", Soviet Jewish Affairs,
4.3 (1972), 73–79.
== External links ==
[2] An article on Israeli anarchism today
by Uri Gordon
It's All Lies - Israel anarchist and radical
scene
Anarchism in the Kibbutz Movement by Yaacov
Oved.
Kibbutz Trends 38, Summer 2000
Anarchism Eight Questions on Kibbituzim - Answers
from Noam Chomsky, Questions from Nikos Raptis,
from Znet Commetnaries, August 24, 1999
Yiddish Anarchist Bibliography at Kate Sharpley
Library
Les Anarchistes, le sionisme et la naissance
de l'État d'Israël, by Sylvain Boulouque
Indymedia in Israel
East Mediterranean Libertarians
