14 Facts About Ber Borochov

Ber Borochov was a pioneer in the study of the Yiddish language.

Dov Ber Borochov was born in the town of Zolotonosha, Russian Empire, and grew up in nearby Poltava.

Ber Borochov became ill and died in Kiev of pneumonia in December 1917.

Ber Borochov became highly influential in the Zionist movement because he explained nationalism in general, and Jewish Nationalism in particular, in terms of Marxist class struggle and dialectical materialism.

Ber Borochov saw himself as a Marxist, and he laid out his philosophy in his first major work, published in 1905, The National Question and the Class Struggle, in which he criticized capitalism.

Ber Borochov predicted that nationalist forces would be more important in determining events than economic and class considerations, especially as concerned the Jews.

Ber Borochov argued that the class structure of European Jews resembled an inverted class pyramid where few Jews occupied the productive layers of society as workers.

Ber Borochov became an avid supporter of a Palestine-based Zionism following the Sixth World Zionist Congress, during which the question of Uganda as a possible temporary refuge for the Jews was debated.

Ber Borochov's ideas were influential in convincing Jewish youth from Europe to move to Palestine.

However, Ber Borochov's theories remained most influential in Eastern Europe, where they formed the basis of the Left Poale Zionist movement which was active in Poland during the interwar years.

Ber Borochov insisted that he was a Social Democrat, but Ber Borochov's Left Poale Zion followers continued to vigorously advocate class struggle both in Palestine and eastern Europe, supporting the February Revolution of 1917.

Ber Borochov returned to Russia in August 1917 and attended the Third All-Russian Poale Zion party congress to argue for socialist settlement in Palestine.

Ber Borochov wrote a short dictionary of Old Yiddish, and was a regular contributor to the Yiddish daily newspaper, Di Warheit.

Ber Borochov's contributions were recognized in various ways by the early Jewish settlement in Palestine.