My American Bundism

On Sunday, Oct. 22, I'll be traveling from my home in Ypsilanti, Michigan, to New York City to participate in a celebration of the 120th Anniversary of the founding of a major political and cultural movement in Eastern Europe, the Jewish Labor Bund. The event is being hosted and co-sponsored by YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the Workmen's Circle. Several of the announced speakers attended Camp Hemshekh (1959-1978) in the New York Catskills, described by Yiddish teacher Paula Teitelbaum as “founded by committed Bundist Holocaust survivors to share their ideals of democratic socialism and of promoting the Yiddish language and culture with American Jewish children.” Others, including Jack Jacobs, Irena Klepfisz, Zalmen Mlotek, Avram Patt, and Alex Weiser are scholars focused on Bundism and left politics, teach Yiddish, and use Yiddish in their creative work. A number of them grew up as children of labor organizers, some in Yiddish speaking Bundist homes. I will be one of the few presenters at the celebration who did not grow up with Bundist or Yiddish culture.