Daniel Kupfert Heller
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691174754
- eISBN:
- 9781400888627
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691174754.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter details Vladimir Jabotinsky's first encounter with Polish Jewish youth, during a last-ditch effort in 1927 to gain supporters for his political organization, the Union of Revisionist ...
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This chapter details Vladimir Jabotinsky's first encounter with Polish Jewish youth, during a last-ditch effort in 1927 to gain supporters for his political organization, the Union of Revisionist Zionists. He initially viewed the Polish Jews flocking to greet him at train stations with a mix of pity, disdain, and suspicion. Little did he know that they would transform his very understanding of Revisionism's mission and the tools required to bring him to power. The chapter then describes how members of several Jewish youth movements in Poland helped to convince the Revisionist leader to turn the celebration of militarism and the rejection of socialism into core components of his organization's program. Culminating with the founding of Poland's Betar youth movement at the end of 1927, it reveals how Polish Jewish youth were not merely the passive recipients of ideology imposed “from above” but played an active role in shaping the political beliefs and behaviors they adopted.Less
This chapter details Vladimir Jabotinsky's first encounter with Polish Jewish youth, during a last-ditch effort in 1927 to gain supporters for his political organization, the Union of Revisionist Zionists. He initially viewed the Polish Jews flocking to greet him at train stations with a mix of pity, disdain, and suspicion. Little did he know that they would transform his very understanding of Revisionism's mission and the tools required to bring him to power. The chapter then describes how members of several Jewish youth movements in Poland helped to convince the Revisionist leader to turn the celebration of militarism and the rejection of socialism into core components of his organization's program. Culminating with the founding of Poland's Betar youth movement at the end of 1927, it reveals how Polish Jewish youth were not merely the passive recipients of ideology imposed “from above” but played an active role in shaping the political beliefs and behaviors they adopted.
