This cartoon was published on November 18, 1927 in the Yiddish newspaper Haynt. The cartoon appeared two weeks after the Zionist community’s celebrations and ceremonies to mark ten years since the Balfour Declaration. The cartoon was a criticism of the Bund which ignored the importance of the declaration.
In the cartoon a mass demonstration of Jews are waving the Zionist flag, celebrating the Balfour Declaration. The Bund is symbolised by a blindfolded man standing on a balcony overlooking the demonstration, saying: “I can’t see anyone.”
The anonymous cartoonist would seem to be suggesting that the Bund was suffering from blindness and ignoring the mind-set of the Jewish public in Poland who were sympathetic to the Zionist idea and were celebrating the historic achievement of the Balfour Declaration.
Would You Like to Know More?
Haynt (Yiddish newspaper) - This cartoon was published in Haynt, the best-selling daily Yiddish newspaper in Poland between the First and Second World Wars. Haynt was published in Warsaw from 1906 until 1939 and played a key role in Warsaw’s emergence as one of the centres of twentieth-century modern Jewish culture prior to the Holocaust. In the twenty years between the two world wars, the Jewish population of Poland underwent great modernisation while also suffering from rising poverty and deepening anti-Semitism. The newspaper reflected and expressed these developments with its tone becoming more ideological and aggressive. Haynt identified unequivocally with the Zionist movement and served as a platform for the writings of its leaders.
Jewish Community in Poland - The Jewish population in Poland between the world wars was divided into three blocs: the ultra-Orthodox, the Zionists (secular and religious), and the secular non-Zionists. Prominent among the last group was the Bund, a political organisation which declared its socialist opposition to Zionism and fought for the cultural and political rights of Poland’s Yiddish-speaking Jewish population. The heated ideological debates between the different groups were often played out in their associated newspapers.
In response to the Balfour Declaration, the Bund in Poland created an ideology of doikayt (hereness) which maintained that Jews should develop their culture in the country of their birth.
