We, Traitors - by Kaleem Hawa (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In this collection of never-before-translated Bundist writing, the largest Jewish socialist party in history explains its opposition to Zionism in its own words.

As the threat of violence loomed in the early twentieth century, Bundists doubled down on their politics of solidarity with all oppressed peoples, not just Jews. In return, Zionists called them "traitors." And as Zionism became hegemonic in the wake of the Holocaust, the Bund's vast corpus of anti-Zionist writings languished untranslated in Yiddish--until now.

This volume presents texts from the most prominent leaders, orators, and thinkers of the Bund: critical travelogues from Palestine and furious takedowns of Zionist propaganda, eyewitness accounts of Zionist violence and groundbreaking visions of a future where Jews, Palestinians, and oppressed peoples everywhere could find liberation through socialism.

At a time when people are more hungry than ever to learn about the long history of Jewish anti-Zionism, Bundists' revolutionary fervor and sense of social justice can tempt us to lionize them as heroes. Here, read in their own words for the first time, we can understand Bundists in all their cultural and historical specificity: good and bad, noble and petty, inclusive and exoticizing. One thing, however, becomes absolutely clear: we are not the first ones to fight this fight.

Review Quotes

"I am awed by the work of archival reclamation [Tankus and Beirich] did. I can't wait till you all get to read this book."
--Molly Crabapple

About the Author

Eyshe Beirich is a professional Yiddish translator and scholar living in Toronto, ON. His translations and writings have been featured in Jewish Currents, Der Spekter, In geveb, Afn Shvel, the Yiddish Forverts, among others. He has taught Yiddish and Yiddish literature at the University of Toronto, Columbia University, the University of Chicago, and at Yiddish programs and institutions across the world.

Nathan Tankus is a writer, researcher, and president of the publication Notes on the Crises. He is the author of the forthcoming book The Trump-Musk Payments Crisis: A 250-Year History, under contract with Viking Press.

Eyshe Beirich is a professional Yiddish translator and scholar living in Toronto, ON. His translations and writings have been featured in Jewish Currents, Der Spekter, In geveb, Afn Shvel, the Yiddish Forverts, among others. He has taught Yiddish and Yiddish literature at the University of Toronto, Columbia University, the University of Chicago, and at Yiddish programs and institutions across the world.

Kaleem Hawa is a Palestinian writer and researcher living in New York. He is the author of Like a Bag Trying to Empty (2024), a short book on the Palestinian prison intellectual Walid Daqqa.