Shabbat Gathering: Here Where We Live Is Our Country.

Gud Shabbos Khaveyrim, as is our custom, we will gather tonight at 5.45p ct to welcome Shabbat. These are the coordinates:

Zoom
Meeting ID: 883 8469 4181
Password: 822665
Phone: +1 312 626 6799

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I received a new book this week and, in and of itself, that’s not news. However, this is a special book I’ve been anticipating for some months now. The book is Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund by Molly Crabapple.

I’ve written before about the Jewish Bund and, in particular, the Bund’s idea of doikayt which is the Yiddish word for the title of Crabapple’s book. It’s a key belief of the Bund.

Crabapple’s book is very personal. Her great-grandfather was a member of the Bund and passed down his political activism to her along with his artistic skills which she displays on the cover of the book and the beginning of each chapter.

The book is a chronological telling of the Bund’s story beginning in 1772 and proceeding through the complicated re-telling of the history of the ever shifting borders of Russia, Poland, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and every other country in the region. The first line of the book is, “Every family has its legend,” and Crabapple does justice to her own family’s legend, her great-grandfather, Sam Rothbort. The book continues on to the present day. The book is tremendously well research and notated. There’s about 75 pages of glossary, bibliography, notes, and an index. To write the book, Crabapple learned Yiddish.

I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read so far and can’t wait to get further in the book to read about the rise and fall of the Bund. But like Yiddish, the Bund is a Jewish movement that can’t be counted out. A couple of years ago the Bund began reforming and now has committees throughout Europe, North America, and the Pacific Rim.

Here Where We Live Is Our Country is being widely reviewed and will end up appealing to readers well beyond the current members of the nascent group. I’m sure there are lessons to learn that can be applied to today’s current political and social situation. Besides doikayt, today’s Bund emphasizes Jewishness and solidarity, qualities we all appreciate.

And may it be for all of us a blessing.

See you tonight!
Mit vareme grusn,
(With warm regards,)

All my love,
brian.

PS

In her inspired and inspiring history of the Jewish Bund, Molly Crabapple has found her anti-Zionist heroes for our time

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