Picture: Bund demonstration on May 1s.

Bund demonstration on May 1s. Warsaw, Poland, 1936

Must Know

The Jewish Labor Bund, or the Bund, was founded in Russia in 1897, and was a socialist Jewish secular party. It promoted Yiddish, automatism, and secular Jewish nationalism for Jews in Lithuania, Poland and Russia. It functioned like a union to better the lives of Jews in Eastern Europe.

Russia had the largest concentrations of Jews in the world during the 19th century. Many of the world’s intellectual Jews had/have Russian roots which they left behind due to the rise of antisemitism and eventual war in Europe.