What role did Jews play in the development of Russian radicalism and socialism?
-Jews played a huge part in early Russian radicalism-->made up 20 percent of the People's Will Faction
-After assassination of Alexander II, Jews were distrusted and left the populist cause
-Marx's approach was more appealing to young Jewish, underclass because it offered a "blueprint" of a classless society and rejected anti-Semitism
-Jews were leaders of the Russian Social Democratic Movement
-Jewish communities produced Marxist "study groups"
Describe the Jewish Bund and its role in Russian socialism.
-General Jewish Worker's Union
-origins go back to traditions of Jewish self-help in the Pale-->aid to needy families, credit society
-young Jews preached Marxist ideology here to working class Jews, the working class Jews embraced it, and the number of Marxist followers grew immensely
-mostly "the Bund that stood at the forefront in launching demonstrations and strikes against the government's antisemetic legislation" (294).
-well- organized party
What happened tot he Jews in Russia in the wake of the Revolution of 1905?
-Aftermath of Nicholas II's October Manifesto, launched six hundred pogroms to strike out against the Pale and acculturated Jewish communities in the Russian interior.
-990 Jews died
What was the case of Mendel Beilis and what did it reveal about the situation of Jews in Russia before WWI?
-when a boy (Andrei Yustchinski) was found murdered outside of Beilis' factory, he was arrested even though the one who arranged the murder was Andrei's friend's (Zhenya) mother Vera Cheberiak (part of the Cheberiak gang)
-Beilis was ultimately found not guilty after spending several years in prison
-because of a former Catholic Priest testified that the murder was an example of a "Jewish ritual murder" people of Russia were outraged
-"By 1913, the acquittal of Mendel Bielis had occurred too late to persuade event he most optimistic among them that Nicholas II's corrupt and dysfunctional regime would ever be liberalized. Only a force majeure would effect their salvation, and few Jews, or Russians, could have anticipated a transformation of that magnitude" (309).
Mendes-Flohr
What were the socialist and territorialist proposals of Simon Dubnow and the Bund to solve Jewish problems in eastern Europe?
-Dubnow proposed that through the growth of spiritual nationhood, Jews would be able to remain politically and territorially apart of their respective states, while still enjoying cultural autonomy
-Dubnow--->Society for Full and Equal Rights of the Jewish People in Russia (association of non-socialist Jews)
The Bund
-Equal civil and political rights for Jews
-rights may be obtained by the fall of tsarrist regime
-the term "nationality" applies to Jewish people
-National cultural autonomy
-no more division of language
