Ber Borochov (1881-1917)

Ber Borochov was born and raised in Ukraine. Because of anti-semitism, he chose not to go to university. He worked for the Social Democratic Party, but was fired for being a Zionist. He helped write the platform of the Russian Pale Zion (Works of Zion) group. He had to leave Russia because of problems with the police, so he toured Europe speaking for the group. He came to the US when WWI broke out, but returned to Kiev in 1917 where he died at 36.

Some quotes from "The National Question and the Class Struggle"

"The national struggle is waged not for the preservation of cultural values but for the control of material possessions, even though it is very often conducted under the banner of spiritual slogans."

He makes some similar claims to Syrkin, saying that basically Jews wouldn't need a country if they were allowed to live properly under a different nation.

BUT, once a people are oppressed, the form of a national need changes shape:

"When the freedom of his language is curtailed, the oppressed person becomes all the more attached thereto. In other words, the national question of an oppressed people is detached from its association with the material conditions of production. The cultural aspects assume an independent significance, and all the members of the nation becomes interested in national self-determination."

So while the need for self-governance may have begun on a material level, it escalates to a cultural one when a people feels oppressed.

He says that on a practical level, it's mostly Jewish lower classes that are impacted by anti-semitism. But the Jewish bourgeoisie "would like above all else to lose its individuality and be assimilated completely by the native bourgeoisie," and so anti-semitism against lower class Jews trouble the upper classes because it more heavily defines Jews as a separate group and makes general assimilation more difficult.

He also talks about how, similar to Syrkin, anti-semitism has its roots in economic competition between Jews and the rest of the members of the countries where they live. "Emigration alone does not solve the Jewish problem. It leaves the Jew helpless in a strange country. For that reason Jewish immigration and any other national immigration tend toward compact settlements. This concentration alleviates the process of adaptation to the newly found environment, but at the same time it accelerates the rise of national competition in the countries into which the Jews have recently immigrated."