Doikayt: the Alternative to Zionism

"But the Holocaust" Part 3

Read “But the Holocaust” Part 1 and Part 2

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I learned about doikayt at a Land Day rally in South Minneapolis. In typical Minneapolis fashion, we marched around Cedar lake on a windy day, remnants of slushy snow squishing beneath our boots. Eventually, we stopped to catch our breath and one by one, speakers hopped on top of the pickup truck cargo bed, where a makeshift sound system was set up. First, a Dakota organizer shared stories of his connection to the land of Mni Sota Make, drawing parallels between the plight of his ancestors resisting U.S. colonialism and the Palestinian struggle today. Next, Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian-American human rights lawyer, shared information about the Gaza Freedom Flotilla’s attempt to break the siege in Gaza. Then Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg spoke.

She shared: 

“Growing up I was told a single sided Zionist narrative of history filled with lies and omissions. I wanted to learn my people’s history before Zionism. I felt in my core I had inherited a tradition that honored life and interconnectedness and that Zionism was a manipulation of our trauma and oppression.”

Rabbi Jessica talked about how Zionism was a marginal concept for most of Jewish history. Instead of settling in Palestine,

“Jewish communities built relationships of respect and mutuality with the land and their neighbors. We did not take land or build nation states or conquer. My Yiddish ancestors developed a concept of doikayt, or hereness, of developing relationships with land they lived on, that involved mutual solidarity with other oppressed peoples and fighting back against empire.” 

Her words stuck with me.

Image by Wendy Elisheva Somerson (@wendyelisheva)

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Doikayt Then

In part two of ‘But the Holocaust,’ I posed the questions: In the aftermath of the Holocaust, was there an alternative to Zionism? Is there an alternative today? Doikayt (דאָיִקייט), Yiddish for hereness, was the answer for many Jews before and during the World War II. Doikayt is the antithesis of Zionism and the ideological predecessor of today’s anti-Zionism. It is the idea that Jews in the diaspora belong wherever they happen to reside.

(Quick side bar: It’s worth making an important distinction that ‘belonging’ here doesn’t refer to a claim of Indigeneity. For detailed and insightful writing on “Jewish Indigeneity”, please check out this essay by Daniel Delgado. More on this soon!)

In talking to relatives about the concept of doikayt, I learned that ancestors on both sides of my family belonged to branches of the Jewish Labour Bund, the political party who developed doikayt in the 19th century. This prompted me to do some reading. 

The Jewish Labor Bund formed parallel to the World Zionist Organization at the end of the 19th century. While the early Zionists were pursuing the goal of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, Bundists favored the idea that home was wherever one happened to reside. And that home was worth fighting for. These diverging movements emerged during a period of severe anti-semitism, as Jewish workers in Eastern Europe faced intense discrimination. They were barred from most industries, working predominantly in sweatshops that demanded intense manual labor with low wages and dangerous conditions. This included 12-hour workdays with inadequate ventilation, widespread hunger, and lack of access to safety equipment. Both the Bundists and Zionists hoped to remedy this situation: Bundists by aligning with socialist liberation movements and Zionists by colonizing and resettling Jews in Palestine. 

In the first part of the 20th century, Bundism was much more effective than Zionism. And doikayt was their rallying cry.

People were compelled by the ‘hereness’ of confronting anti-semitism in the countries they lived, and repelled by the"thereness" of the Zionist movement. One draw of doikayt was its anti-assimilationist approach. Bundists emphasized the importance of maintaining Yiddish language and traditions, rather than assimilating to dominant European cultures. Alternatively, the Zionists openly identified with European colonialism and sought to repeat its practices in Palestine. Ze’ev Jabotinsky, in his 1927 essay Iron Wall, likened himself and the Zionists to colonists of North America. He wrote:

“The pilgrim fathers, the first real pioneers of North America, were people of the highest morality... Yet the Native population fought with the same ferocity against the good colonists. This is also true of the Arabs.” 

Photograph of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, one inspiration of today’s far-right Likud party.

Despite its momentum, the Jewish Labor Bund came to a screeching halt in the aftermath of the Holocaust. By the end of the 1940s the Polish Bund, where the party had reached its zenith, had fallen. 

On the surface it seemed that Jews had given up on ‘hereness’ and decided that ‘thereness’, the settlement of Palestine, was the only option for survival. In part 1 of “But the Holocaust,” I argue that this was not a natural conclusion, but one that was coaxed into existence by deliberately manipulating people’s trauma. Regardless, doikayt had lost its political potency for many. That is, until the 21st century when anti-Zionist Jewish organizers found it. 

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Doikayt Now

Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz’s book The Colors of Jews: Racial Politics and Radical Diasporism reclaims doikayt as an organizing framework for anti-fascist Jews. She writes: 

“Diasporism takes root in the Jewish Socialist Labor Bund’s principle of doikayt—hereness—the right to be, and to fight for justice, wherever we are. Doikayt means Jews enter coalitions wherever we are, across lines that might divide us, to work together for universal equality and justice.” 

This reclamation of doikayt reflects the collective liberation framework of today’s social justice movements. We are not free until everybody is free. We cannot fight for our liberation in isolation. 

Doikayt is not simply an idea, it is a political praxis. Jews in Minneapolis are practicing hereness in a number of ways. One is through a community called The World to Come, a decentralized anti-Zionist group with shared values and a diverse array of Jewish practices, all rooted in place. Jews gather for candle-making workshops, film screenings, monthly Shabbat services, mutual aid projects, ritual protests and more. I participated in a Shabbat candle-making workshop this Spring, using beeswax harvested at a local farm to create our very own Shabbat candles. The event was organized by an anti-Zionist Jewish chandler who invited the World to Come community. As we made our candles, we discussed the centuries-long tradition of candle-making and the importance of maintaining Yiddish ritual wherever we are.

This was doikayt in action.

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Jews organizing in solidarity with Palestine are also practicing doikayt. Alongside our Palestinian partners, we are fighting for change in the places we reside.

One recent protest, organized by the Twin Cities chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, brought our ritual to the state capitol. We commemorated Tisha B’av, a day of mourning destroyed sacred sites, at the footstep of Secretary of State Steve Simon’s office, a member of the Jewish community who sits on the State Board of Investment (SBI). Amidst ongoing genocide, we connected the teachings of our rituals and the Roman Empire’s destruction of Jewish sacred centers in 70 CE, to Israel’s destruction of Palestinian sacred sites today. Empire is at the root of all our struggles and it wasn’t enough to just mourn our losses. Instead, we practiced doikayt, demanding material change in line with the local and international Palestine Solidarity Movement. We urged Secretary Simon and the SBI to divest the $157 million dollars of public employee pensions that are currently invested in Israeli companies government Bonds. Doikayt is a call to the streets, to each other, to mutual aid and to practicing Jewish ritual as acts of resistance.

Photograph from Twin Cities JVP Tisha B’av ritual protest

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I find great resonance with doikayt when reflecting on the legacy of the Holocaust. The nazi empire, like all empires, thrived on our atomization. When we are divided, we are easier to conquer and when we stand up for each other, we are strong. Only through hereness and togetherness can we strive not only our own safety, but also fight for the liberation of our oppressed relatives, including and especially Palestinians. 

My ancestors’ struggles call me to doikayt. And I am not alone. We are witnessing a growing movement of anti-Zionist Jews, willing to challenge the prevailing narratives presented by our presidential candidates, Hebrew schools, congresspeople, synagogues, and families. The contradictions of Zionism are more clear than ever, as Israel commits a genocide in Gaza, live-streamed to the world by courageous Palestinian journalists. The cat is out of the bag. Criticizing Israel and staunchly opposing colonialism, apartheid and genocide is not anti-semitic. Instead, organizing for Palestinian liberation is quintessentially Jewish and how many of us connect to and honor our ancestors. 

Let’s talk about the Holocaust. Let’s talk about Zionism. And let’s organize today, tomorrow, until Palestine is free.

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This is the final part of “But the Holocaust.” I hope you learned something and found clarity in what you believe. Stay tuned next week as I shift gears to write about other things!

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