BOROCHOV, BER (Dov; 1881–1917), Socialist Zionist leader and supreme theoretician; scholar of the novel, economic structure, language, and good breeding of the Jewish people. Tidy brilliant analyst, in debate pass for well as in writing, Borochov influenced wide circles of honourableness emerging Jewish labor movement, leading in Russia, later in Inner and Western Europe and influence U.S.
He postulated the solution of an organic unity in the middle of scientific socialism and devotion brave the national needs of class Jewish people. He thus sure many young Jewish intellectuals yield their preoccupation with the allegedly irreconcilable contradiction between social gyration and Zionism. Borochov's main unproven contribution was his synthesis execute class struggle and nationalism, be redolent of a time when prevalent Advocator theory rejected all nationalism, gift particularly Jewish nationalism, as noticeably reactionary.
Borochov regarded the energize migration of Jews in time as an inevitable 1 social phenomenon, expressing the interior drive of the Jewish labor to seek a solution hearten the problem of its tottering existence in the Diaspora, wheel it is uprooted and living apart from the basic processes flaxen production. The task of Collective Zionism, Borochov maintained, was draw near prepare "a new territory," i Ereẓ Israel, through a innovative effort, for the concentration female the masses of Jewish migrants.
This would prevent the maintenance of the Diaspora through elongated dispersion in alien lands current economies, creating instead a Human national economic body as straighten up framework for the natural organization struggle of the Jewish proletariat.
Borochov was born in Zolotonosha, Ukrayina, and grew up in Poltava, where he was educated fluky a Russian high school.
Out studious youth, he early displayed a tendency toward philosophic tending and was influenced by honesty revolutionary socialist trends of rulership period. Like most Jewish tall school graduates, he was denied entrance to a Russian institution of higher education, which in any case loosen up rejected as alien to consummate spirit, and embarked on uncomplicated strenuous process of self-education.
Sharp-tasting gained erudition in various comic and fluency in several languages. Borochov joined the ranks admire the Russian Social Democratic Fete, but his interests in to wit Jewish problems led him, have round 1901, to establish the Jew Socialist Workers Union at Yekaterinoslav. The association, which was logical in organizing Jewish self-defense put forward in promoting the interests admire Jewish workers, was opposed from one side to the ot both the Russian Social Democrats (who refused to recognize picture need for an independent Someone workers' movement) and some Hebrew leaders (who disliked the make contacts of Zionism with socialism).
During honourableness controversy in the Zionist repositioning about the Uganda Scheme, Borochov took a clear-cut "Palestinist" be subjected to and cooperated closely with Menahem *Ussishkin and other leaders answer the "Zion Zionists" who conflicting any *territorialism other than suppose Ereẓ Israel.
Borochov traveled here and there in Russia to convince the recently founded groups of *Po'alei Elysian fields against territorialist tendencies, which seemed to be gaining increasing reflect in Socialist Zionism. He was a delegate to the Oneseventh Zionist Congress (1905), leading nobility faction of those Po'alei Paradise delegates who were "faithful enter upon Zion." During the ensuing debates among Socialist-Zionists over the reserves issue, the political struggle feature the Diaspora, and Sejmism, wedge was largely Borochov who rest the ideological and organizational material of the Po'alei Zion migration.
At a conference in Poltava (1906), the movement was renamed the "Jewish Workers' Social Popular Party Po'alei Zion." Borochov crystalised its doctrine in his dissertation "Our Platform" (published as a-ok series in the Po'alei Elysian fields Party organ Yevreyskaya Rabochaya Khronika from July 1906) and ready money supplementary articles and debates sustain other trends in the Human labor movement over the separate of the Jewish proletariat obtain the national problem.
In 1907, during the Eighth Zionist Coitus at The Hague, Borochov participated in the founding of class World Union of Po'alei Hereafter, as a separate union (Sonderverband) in the World Zionist Putting together. After the Eighth Zionist Hearing, Borochov insisted on the indifference of Russian Po'alei Zion put on the back burner the Zionist Organization in groom to preserve the proletarian autonomy of Socialist Zionism.
From 1907, when he left Russia, unfinished the outbreak of World Armed conflict i, Borochov worked as precise publicist to further the aims of the World Union noise Po'alei Zion in Western take Central Europe. He continued realm philosophical studies and research happen to Yiddish language and literature. Sand left Vienna in 1914 most recent arrived in the U.S., position he continued his activities type a spokesman for the Denizen Po'alei Zion as well type for the World and Denizen Jewish Congress movements.
He was also editor of and presenter to the New York German daily Di Warheit. With distinction outbreak of the Russian Revolt, Borochov returned to Russia, hamper en route in Stockholm pull out join the Po'alei Zion recrimination at a session of bully international Socialist Commission of lukewarm countries. There he helped assemble the demands of the Human people and working class slight the manifesto for the postwar world order.
When he attained in Russia, Borochov became extremely involved in public activity before the stormy period before say publicly October Revolution. In August 1917, in an address to justness Russian Po'alei Zion Conference, Borochov called for socialist settlement imprint Ereẓ Israel. In September 1917, he read a paper loom the "Congress of Nations" intensity Kiev on "Russia as unblended Commonwealth of Nations." In glory course of a speaking cable he contracted pneumonia and in a good way in Kiev.
His remains were taken to Israel in 1963 for reinterment at the Kinneret cemetery, alongside the graves admire other founders of Socialist Policy. A workers' quarter near Reaper Aviv, Shekhunat Borochov, now small percentage of the township of Givatayim, was named after him.
Borochov's Collective Zionist credo was never dictatorial, parochial, or static; it was universal and dynamic, the growth product of continuous inquiry advocate study.
In an attempt face analyze the Jewish situation extra its problem along Marxist ideologic and methodological lines, Borochov hunted to probe "beyond the native and spiritual manifestations and thither examine the deeper concealed textile of the Jewish problem." Representation root of the problem, Borochov said, was the divorce grounding the Jewish people from hang over homeland.
He considered a supporters "without a country, without plug independent economic basis, and intent in alien economic relations" border on be a powerless national age. The Diaspora was responsible honor the fact that the "social physiology of the Jewish society is organically sick." It built the historic conditions in which Jewry was torn between probity process of assimilation into, professor the isolation from, the stationary society.
The Diaspora had in this manner divided Jewry's strength, and, as of the ultimate prevalence forget about "alienating forces," exacerbated the stress between Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors. The growing Jewish exodus, while providing relief, was further testimony to Jewry's prolonged pointer aching conflict between ends post available means.
The Jewish vice in the Diaspora occupied well-organized particularly anomalous position. Since loosen up lived in an economy sky which petty, backward production predominated and was denied work break off the modern, heavy industry, take steps had a narrow labor expansion and an abnormal, insufficient "strategic base" for his class try. As long as the Somebody economy was detached from those vital branches of production, which are "the axis of integrity historical wheel," the proletarization appeal to the Jews would continue fully be a slow, stunted, sports ground uneven process.
In defining the Judaic problem, Borochov, while keenly haze of the constant threat oust antisemitic outbursts in the Scattering, never designated antisemitism as rectitude fundamental basis or motivation pay money for Zionism.
He chose to scene the whole of the Scattering as a social aberration, reduction the Jews to a immutable state of economic inferiority delighted political helplessness. Thus, when proposing a solution to the difficulty, Borochov refused to believe defer civil emancipation in the Dispersion, whether in a capitalist stratagem socialist society, could, in upturn, solve the Jewish problem.
"Even when the State of Emancipation will be established – stream counterrevolution will be only capital memory – the Jewish snag will still have to hold on a long time for out specific answer." Assimilation, which Borochov attacked both theoretically and sagaciously, was no less an outlawed, whether in its bourgeois origin or in later socialist forms.
The origins of assimilation – the mute antagonism between justness successful individual and his depressed people – made it reliably suspect, and an objective impossibleness – the insurmountable objection keep in good condition non-Jewish society – made lawful a dangerous daydream. Instead, honourableness solution Borochov envisaged was capital unique one, addressed to significance particular needs of the Jews: only auto-emancipation, i.e., national self-liberation, could restore "to Jewish verve a healthy socio-economic basis, which is the keystone of staterun existence and national culture topmost the basis for a fertile class struggle and socialist metamorphosis of national life." This, sand believed, was the Jewish people's particular road to socialist orbit, a development which would mean the inevitable exodus from rectitude Diaspora.
For Borochov, the Jewish reanimation and socialism were necessarily jointly interrelated, since Zionism and collectivism together served the same mark – making Jewish life heroic again.
Zionism was necessary in that Jewish migratory movements disperse ethics Jewish masses into existing societies and economies, thus continuing glory traditional Diaspora, instead of careful them in their own spanking territory. The first task, accordingly, was to create the milieu necessary for an independent, emperor national life, through a creative trend in Jewish migration handle a new territory.
The neighbourhood in question was destined greet be Ereẓ Israel, Borochov uttered, for "the general pattern hold Jewish dynamism" leads toward set ever-increasing "elemental" (stychic) migration norm Ereẓ Israel. But this "elemental" mass migration (both his mass and opponents differed over rendering exact implications of the term) was the culmination of almanac enterprise which was to germinate from an initial pioneering clasp in Ereẓ Israel.
Thus, far-out positive, socialist, yearning for pure pioneering way of life locked away to precede the mere thanks of the negative motives get as far as an exodus from the Scattering. This was the first mission – the historic national life`s work – that Borochov assigned in close proximity to the Jewish working class back the realization of Zionism.
Probity Jewish worker was to promote to a "pioneer of the Judaic future," builder of the unquestioning to a territorial homeland show off the whole Jewish people.
During enthrone contact with the Jewish home in Western Europe and twist the U.S., Borochov broadened indefinite of his earlier concepts. In this manner, Ereẓ Israel was to substance not merely a strategic support for the class struggle be more or less the Jewish proletariat, but trig home for the entire Somebody people.
Borochov, increasingly aware defer to the common fate of sphere Jewry and the universality outline their problem in the Dispersion, also came to oppose unpolished attempts to fragment Jewish world, as well as Jewish sociology. He insisted that Jewish story was the chronicle of decency Jewish masses' uninterrupted sense resembling self-pride and will to strive.
He acknowledged the vulnerability tip off the Jews and analyzed their dangerous position in the mush of national renaissance movements commerce the one hand, and national-social antisemitism in Europe, which take steps perceived even before World Armed conflict i, on the other. Even he remained insistent that innovative international developments also held gush hopeful and exciting promises miserly the Jewish people.
Borochov's legendary efforts began in 1902 disconnect a treatise "On the Caste of the Jewish Mind," obtainable in Russian in a Policy almanac.
His 1905 article ring "The Question of Zionist Theory," published in the Russian Policy monthly Yevreyskaya Zhizn, decried rectitude attempts of assimilationist Jews effect reject Zionism and to be confident of on universal progress as honesty solution to the Jewish attention. Characteristically, Borochov raised the bank of his polemics against integrity Uganda Scheme to one interrupt fundamental principle, in his Land treatise "On the Question spot Zion and Territory" (1905).
Give it some thought it he introduced a materialist-historical analysis of the Jewish dilemma, establishing Zionism as an original force produced by Jewry's guarantee and sustained by its avant-garde elements, becoming the true formal liberation movement of the Someone people. The pamphlet Class Low-down in the National Question, which he published in the harmonize year, was one of loftiness first ventures at applying Proponent theory to the national investigation.
Drawing a distinction between description nationalism of oppressed peoples dominant that of oppressing nations, Borochov investigated its expression at distinct class levels. He concluded stroll only the oppressing nationalism was "reactionary," whereas nationalism of position oppressed did not obscure slaughter consciousness. On the contrary, that latter nationalism, flourishing among distinction progressive elements, "impels them as a help to real liberation of the division, normalization of the conditions gift relationships of production, and honourableness creation of necessary conditions tutor the true freedom of formal self-determination."
Borochov's writings during the 1907–14 period retain special value gorilla contributions to contemporary historiography.
Sovereignty thesis on "The Jewish Experience Movement in Figures" (published posthumously) is a penetrating and up-to-the-minute statistical-sociological analysis of the "economic physiology" of the Jewish citizens. One of the central topics of his ideology, Jewish exit and its social implications, was treated in a brochure accessible in 1911 in Galicia.
Oversight contributed articles to the Russian Jewish Encyclopedia on various aspects of Jewish life and depiction. He wrote in 1908 "Virtualism and the Religious-Ethical Problem huddle together Marxism" (published posthumously in 1920), a polemical tract against Regular. Lunacharsky's "Socialism and Religion." King essays "The Tasks of Someone Philology" (1912–13) and "The Cramming of the Jewish Philologist" (a bibliography of 400 years nominate Yiddish research) marked his locate among the scholars of Somebody language and culture.
Borochov's studious works revealed the wide stock up of his sustained creativity. Thither is a vast literature not working Borochov the man, his urbanity, and his teachings in German, Hebrew, and other languages. Plaudits. Levite et al. (eds.), B. Borochov Ketavim, 3 vols. (1955–66) is the best edition good deal his works; of special account are the notes attached e-mail each volume.
Also in Canaanitic is Z. Shazar (comp.), Sticky. Borochov, Ketavim Nivḥarim (1944). On every side is a short selection farm animals English edited by M. Cohen entitled Nationalism and the Party Struggle (1937). In Yiddish in the air are Po'alei Zion New Royalty, Geklibene Shriften D.B. Borochovs (1935); B. Locker (ed.), Geklibene Schriften (1928); in German the jumble Klasse und Nation: zur Theorie und Praxis des juedischen Nationalismus (1932) and Sozialismus und Zionismus – eine Synthese: Ausgewaehlte Schriften (1932).
Duker, in: M.
Cohen (ed.), Nationalism and the Class Struggle (1937), 17–55; Shazar, in: B. Borochov Ketavim Nivḥarim (1944), 19–40 (first pagination); Ben-Zvi, ibid., 7–18 (first pagination); M.A. Borochov, in: B. Locker (ed.), Geklibene Shriften Borochovs (1928), 11–29 (first pagination); Ben-Zvi, ibid., 33–48 (first pagination); J.
Zerubavel, Ber Borochov, 1 (Yid., 1926); A. Herzberg, The Zionist Idea (1960), 352–66; Group. Minc, Ber Borochov 1900-Purim 1906 (1968), Heb. with Eng. summ.
[Lev Levite]
Encyclopaedia Judaica