Diaspora Dispatches Vol. 2
In the past several months, Bundists around the world have been actively organizing grassroots educational and cultural events as well as solidarity actions in their respective areas.
Welcome to the second edition of Diaspora Dispatches! With this series, we hope to show that the resurgence of Bundism does not just live online but in the streets, organizing against antisemitism and Zionism and in solidarity with workers and oppressed peoples.
In this edition, we hear from khaveyrim in Poland, Chicago, the DMV area, Minneapolis, and the Bay Area!
Want to share a dispatch from your corner of Diaspora? Send us an email at spekter@derbund.org.
Europe
Cafe Bund, Krakow, Poland
The Cafe Bund project in Kraków, Poland, is entering 2025 with momentum. At our very successful Chanukah/New Years Eve Party, we also premiered Zinelbuch, our first publication in Polish that explores the relevance of Bundist thought today.
In the first three weeks of the year, we organised 2 poetry nights and a concert. We published informational posts on the ceasefire in Gaza, Elon Musk’s Nazi salute, and the differentiation between Shabbat and Shabbes. More cultural events are already lined up for February.
We are working on developing our internal structure, as well as developing ties with other Bundists organising in Europe with the IJLB. We have many plans for cultural, communal, gastronomical and political projects for this year. These include developing our library, creating a second Jewish bloc for the Labour Day demonstration, starting a podcast, increasing our engagement with the Jewish community and the Jewish quarter, and much more!
North America
Chicago:
- We won a significant victory with the ACLU weighing in on our failed attempt to screen Israelism at the Northbrook Public Library (Northbrook is a suburb of Chicago). The library has now assured us that we can screen the film free of any security or insurance costs. One of the filmmakers of "Israelism," Erin Axelman, is expected to come to town, especially for our eventual screening. Local media coverage of the situation can be found here.
- We are super excited about the inaugural Meet Your Allies event we are holding in partnership with local Muslim and Christian-led groups. These interfaith/intercultural events will be held every other month and will always have an educational component and then several hours devoted to community building, strengthening social ties, and hopefully fostering collaboration on future projects. We hope that this will be a space people can return to again and again and that we will use this platform to build the kind of solidarity and understanding we will need as we face down the second Trump administration and the rise of global authoritarianism and white nationalism.
- We are co-sponsoring a Know Your Rights training for both undocumented immigrants and also people like us, their accomplices. The Chicago Legal Responders Network listed on the flyer is a group of lawyers that first banded together in the days of the Muslim Ban, and now they've once again been re-activated. I'm trying to serve as a bridge between them and the communities that need them, recruit more volunteers, etc. This is obviously also urgent work as we prepare for a Trump administration that seeks to enact mass deportations and other types of violence targeted at immigrant communities. We will continue to have more trainings and look for other ways to stand between our friends and neighbors and the violence of the state. As of this writing, 23 people have signed up.
DMV:
In recent months, the DMV Bund has continued to focus on developing cultural programming. We held another Zingeray (singing circle) at Maryland Meadworks, a local meadery. We have agreed with them to do more Yiddish sing-alongs every other month. Additionally, we are planning to start a Yiddish movie night series and are looking to hold our first one in the beginning of February.
On the political organizing front, members of the DMV Bund have been coordinating with the local JVP chapter to hold regular "difficult conversations for the Jewish left" guided discussion groups. The idea for these is that many of us have family members who are Zionists or have not been able to fully unpack the Zionism that was imbued in us by a life of Israeli propaganda. These conversations are spaces to have these conversations without judgement and build towards understanding how they have impacted us and the people in our communities.
An upcoming goal for the DMV Bund is to build a relationship with a local worker-owned cooperative to create a space where anyone could drop in to learn about the Bund, similar to Cafe Bund in Krakow, Poland. Hopefully more progress on this in the next update!
Minneapolis:
We started a new local Bund chapter in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Our first action was a showing of the documentary "Isrealism" at a local independent theater, and it sold out. We proceeded to make a website, twincitiesbund.com.
We met with Zach from Cafe Bund remotely, and one of our members happened to be in Vienna and was able to meet up with him in person!
Another one of our members will go to DC to participate in the People's March, joining the Bund contingent. We are currently planning a letter in response to some attempted intimidation of pro-Palestinian union activity. We connected with other local leftist anti-Zionist Jewish groups, and we were proud to make and share our new zines at the Southside Shtetl, a local pop-up Judaica marketplace.
Anti-Zionist Jews march on Washington days before Trump's inauguration. Image courtesy: Sarah Combellick-Bidney, Twin Cities Bund.
From our zine: "The recognition of all forms of repression, violence and exploitation as parts of the same machine of social control is instrumental to a complete theory of how to dismantle it."
We can be found on Instagram and BlueSky at @twincitiesbund.
Bay Area:
The Golden Gate Bund met in person for the first time! We were able to gather a group of 13 people in Oakland to discuss the future of our chapter, including a current member of the PSC. We discussed potentially hosting events such as fundraisers, comedy shows, book clubs, and more.
Many of our members are already members of various unions, and we talked about leveraging that solidarity to further our reach and bring in more Bundists.
Additionally, many members have connections to local Jewish organizations, radical groups, and educational programs that would be great to plan events with. Our next steps are to successfully create and run an event, work on propaganda and outreach, table for book fairs and the like, and hold a special commemoration on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
On a Der Spekter-related note, two of the editors – Mark Misoshnik and Alex Lantsberg – met in person for the first time and talked about the future of this publication with each other and the Golden Gate Bund. We can be found on Instagram at @goldengatebund.
