The Jewish Labour Bund (), more commonly known as the Jewish Labour Bund Melbourne (), the Australian Bund, or simply the Bund, is the Australian wing of the Bundist movement. It was a member of the historical International Jewish Labor Bund, and is the largest and most active Bundist organisation left in the world. It was founded in 1928 Jewish Polish immigrants, and expanded rapidly after the Second World War with the mass arrival of Holocaust survivors to Australia. The Bund is currently registered only in the state of Victoria, where it is legally known as the Jewish Labour Bund, Inc., and is based primarily in the city of Melbourne.
History
Foundation and Interwar Years
The Bund was founded in Melbourne in 1928 by the newly arrived Polish Jew Sender Burstin together with 12 other Melbourne Bundistn. The first public function by the then-named Bundist Group in Melbourne (Yiddish: די בונדישע גרופּע אין מעלבורן, romanized: Di Bundishe Grupe in Melburn) was a commemoration for Beynish Mikhalevitch, a Polish Bundist leader and head of TSYSHO, the Bundist-led secular Jewish school system. Initially, the group's efforts were focused on supporting the Bund in Poland through collecting funds for TSYSHO schools and the daily Bund newspaper in Poland, Naye Folkstsaytung (The New People's Daily).
Already in 1935, the notion of an economic boycott of Nazi Germany was being discussed among Jews and Jewish organisations in Melbourne. The Bund and Burstin supported the boycott, with support of much of the European Yiddish-speaking Jews in Melbourne. English-speaking Anglo-Jews, were against the boycott at this time. The Committee to Combat Hitler's Germany had Bundists in both president and secretary roles.
In efforts to engage more with local politics, it began cooperating with the Communist Gezerd, which was co-founded by Burstin himself. The two groups formed a "Joint Culture Committee" in 1939 whose slogan was 'strength in unity'. The Committee proclaimed that it attacked the local forces of Jewish 'reaction' and sought to project an alternative voice in political and cultural affairs within the Jewish community (as opposed to the influence of the traditional Anglo-Jewry). It had a focus on current events, organising talks around; the potential for World War, Poland's precarity vis-à-vis Nazi Germany, the threat of Japan to Australia, and local issues. However the two organisations came to blows after the Soviet-Nazi Pact; which the Bundists abhorred. The Bund would leave the Committee in protest and in retaliation dual membership between the Bund and Gezerd was barred by the latter, the Bund being accused accused of "Social Fascism". This included Burstin himself who was expelled from the organisation.
Arriving in Melbourne in 1940, Bialystok Bundist leader Jacob Waks established ties between the Australian Bund and the Australian Labor Party. Waks is credited with campaigning Arthur Calwell, then Minister for Immigration, to provide Australian visas to Jewish displaced persons following World War II. Waks died in 1956 and his funeral was attended by Calwell, who was deputy leader of the Labor Party at the time.
During the Second World War
During the war years, the Bund held public gatherings, named Lebedike Folks Tsaytung (live people's newspaper), to announce events from the ghettos and camps in Poland, as information reported by Australian media and local Jewish media was scarce and inaccurate. Audiences of approximately 400 people would attend these public gatherings and they included many non-Bundist Jews in Melbourne. This led to greater acceptance of the Bund in the Jewish community.
In 1942 the Jewish Council to Combat Fascism and Anti-Semitism was founded, with it soon de facto becoming the leader of the Jewish community during this time, acting as the official public relations representative of the Victoria Jewish Board of Deputies. The Bund took a leading role within the organisation. The Jewish Council had the support of most of the left-of-centre Jewish organisations during the war: including the Bund, Jewish pro-Soviet organisations, Labor Zionists, Liberal Jewish organisations.
Sender and Waks, after meeting with a newly elected Arthur Calwell, were invited to speak at the Victorian Labour Party 1943 Easter Conference in front of 500 delegates. Waks shared his experiences of living under Nazi rule and the fate of the Jews. As a result, the conference adopted a resolution admonishing Hitler's Germany, with an urgent plea to the federal Labor government for assistance.