Bundism and Identity Politics

Gal Beckerman writes in the New York Times:

“In some ways, Mr. Sanders is a Bundist, one of those Jewish but universal-minded socialists who valued their own culture but were fiercely secular, rejecting Zionism in favor of making a more equitable and just home for themselves — whether in Poland or America — through solidarity with the rest of the working class.

If Mr. Sanders’s candidacy is a test of whether a purely economic argument pitched against the “billionaire class” can win out over identity politics and the culture wars, then it’s also a test of his ability to promote this uniquely Jewish invention, an ethnic identity that transcends its particularity.”