Here Where We Live Is Our Country”: Molly Crabapple on Resurfacing the Jewish History of Anti-Zionism

Artist and author Molly Crabapple has released a new book, Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund, which examines the history of the Jewish Labor Bund. The work focuses on a political movement that, while largely forgotten in the present day, once served as a powerful secular, socialist revolutionary party dedicated to securing freedom and dignity for Jews across Europe.

The Jewish Labor Bund emerged during the final years of the Russian Empire. Its formation took place within a social and political atmosphere defined by intense antisemitism, leading the movement to adopt a revolutionary stance to combat oppression.

A defining characteristic of the Bund was its early and consistent opposition to the establishment of a Jewish ethnostate in Palestine. According to Crabapple, the movement

“rejected, from the very start, calls to create a Jewish ethnostate in Palestine”

Molly Crabapple

This rejection of Zionism was not merely a political disagreement but a strategic and moral position. The Bundists believed that the pursuit of a separate state represented a surrender to the same prejudices they were fighting in Europe.

“They felt that Zionism was a capitulation to the same bigots that wanted to kick Jews out of Europe”

Molly Crabapple

The members of the movement, known as Bundists, operated through a period of significant historical upheaval. The Bund’s influence spanned from its founding in 1897 until the movement was ultimately destroyed during the Holocaust.

To conduct the research necessary for the book, Crabapple learned Yiddish, the language of the Bund, to engage more directly with the history of the movement.

Crabapple asserts that the legacy of the Jewish Labor Bund is not limited to Jewish history, but instead offers a broader lesson for those engaged in resistance and social struggle.

“This is a history that belongs to all rebels. It belongs to everyone who believes in the necessity of human solidarity”

Molly Crabapple