Background
Born in Zoiotonosha, Ukraine, Ber Borochov grew up in Poltava, site of many anti-Jewish pogroms. The Ukrainian city was also an intellectual hub, a center of dissident activity in the 1880s, and the heart of the Zionist movement.
Born in Zoiotonosha, Ukraine, Ber Borochov grew up in Poltava, site of many anti-Jewish pogroms. The Ukrainian city was also an intellectual hub, a center of dissident activity in the 1880s, and the heart of the Zionist movement.
Borochov graduated from one of Poltava’s secondary schools in 1900, but was denied access to university because he was Jewish.
In 1900 he followed in the footsteps of Marxist mentors by joining the Social-Democratic party. His interest, however, in creating a Jewish homeland and addressing Jewish issues alienated him from the party, which sought to erase nationalism. Because of his beliefs he was ousted in 1901.
Borochov immediately formed the Zionist Socialist Workers Union at Yckaterinoslav. The organization helped set up Jewish self-defense groups and advanced the concerns of Jewish laborers.
After being arrested in 1906 and escaping in 1907, Borochov left the Ukraine and traveled throughout Europe. He cofounded the World Confederation of Poalei Zion (Zionist Workers), but spent his time in Europe both working with Zionist Socialist pursuits and following his scholarly ambitions.
To form a foundation for the study of the Yiddish language, he sought out every article written about the Yiddish language through the centuries.
With the outbreak of World War I, Borochov was forced to leave Austria and traveled to the United States, where he broadened his theory of a Jewish homeland to include all Jews and not just the common man. At the start of the Russian Revolution, however, Borochovfelt it his duty to return home. En route, he stopped in Stockholm to attend an international conference of the Socialist Com¬mission of Neutral Countries as a Poalei Zion delegate.
Upon arriving back in Russia, Borochov was immediately caught up in political activities. He toured and lectured day and night, but the strenuous schedule proved too much for him; he caught pneumonia and died.
In order to honor Borochov’s contribution to Zionism, his remains were reinterred in Israel at the Kinneret cemetery in 1963.
He therefore tried to combine Zionist nationalism with the atheistic antinationalism of Marx. At first, his theory extended only to the Jewish worker; he said that the laborer could only be fulfilled in a land of his own. There, he said, the worker could truly express himself in socialism. Once the worker was free from fear of persecution and the bondage of being a minority, he would flourish. Later, however, Borochov’s theory embraced not only the Jewish worker, but all Jews in the world, whom he believed should live in their own land in Palestine.
In 1905, Borochovjoined the Poalei Zion party. As a Zionist, he not only supported the idea of a Jewish homeland, but believed it should be in the land of Palestine. His interest in Marxism however, never matched his sense of Jewishness and espousal of Zionism. Indeed so strong was his identification with Jewishness that it led him to become a scholar of the Yiddish language.
Like most Jewish activists of the day, Borochov felt the disparity between Marxism and Zionism. The writings of Karl Marx seemed to point the way to a more just society, yet the age-old quest for a Jewish homeland stirred in Borochov’s heart.