Children of the ghetto

Jewish Revolutionaries in Belgium 1925-1940.

After the First World War, thousands of Jews fled antisemitism and misery in Eastern and Central Europe to Belgium. Among them were both nationalists—who advocated for a Jewish state in Palestine—and revolutionaries, impressed by the October Revolution of 1917. The author follows the Jewish communist migrants from the 1920s onward. He spoke with leaders and activists, thus creating a kind of history of mentality. This reveals that the old world of "Ashkenazi" Judaism—based on religion, family, and tradition—was never far away, despite the revolutionary ideas. Indeed, a conservative reflex led them to seek connection with the utopian world of authoritarian communism. For them, this ideology served as a conservative barrier against the social and cultural disintegration caused by capitalist industrial progress.

Rudi Van Doorslaer
Hadewijch/AMSAB, Antwerp/Ghent, 1996, 253 p., ill., softcover