Kibbutz Buchenwald: Survivors and Pioneers

Kibbutz Buchenwald is the story of a nightmare that became a dream and a dream that became a reality. Emerging from the depths of the liberated concentration camp Buchenwald in the spring of 1945, a group of sixteen gaunt and battered young men organized and formed Kibbutz Buchenwald, the first agricultural collective in postwar Germany designed to prepare Jews for emigation to Palestine. What caused a handful of survivors to take their fate into their own hands within days of their liberation, at a time when most survivors were passively awaiting orders from the occupying forces? From what wellsprings did they draw the physical and emotional strength to begin life anew as Zionist pioneers in a world which had turned upside down? 
 Judith Baumel's moving account of this courageous group is divided into two parts. Part One, entitled "The Dream," examines the kibbutz from its creation in Germany until the departure of the founding group for Palestine in the summer of 1945. Part Two, "The Reality," follows the members of Kibbutz Buchenwald into Palestine, where they eventually established their own independent settlement in 1948. This settlement exists as Kibbutz Netzer Sereni today. 
 Drawing from the diaries of the kibbutz's founding members, Baumel provides a detailed account of an incredible story and places the central narrative in the larger contexts of communal living, European politics after the war, and the link between European Jewry and Israeli postwar nationhood. An afterword, "Where Are They Now," briefly describes the later life of each of the original kibbutz members.

Baumel, Judith

Biographies & Memoirs

Rutgers University Press

Kibbutz Buchenwald is the story of a nightmare that became a dream and a dream that became a reality. Emerging from the depths of the liberated concentration camp Buchenwald in the spring of 1945, a group of sixteen gaunt and battered young men organized and formed Kibbutz Buchenwald, the first agricultural collective in postwar Germany designed to prepare Jews for emigation to Palestine. What caused a handful of survivors to take their fate into their own hands within days of their liberation, at a time when most survivors were passively awaiting orders from the occupying forces? From what wellsprings did they draw the physical and emotional strength to begin life anew as Zionist pioneers in a world which had turned upside down?  Judith Baumel's moving account of this courageous group is divided into two parts. Part One, entitled "The Dream," examines the kibbutz from its creation in Germany until the departure of the founding group for Palestine in the summer of 1945. Part Two, "The Reality," follows the members of Kibbutz Buchenwald into Palestine, where they eventually established their own independent settlement in 1948. This settlement exists as Kibbutz Netzer Sereni today.  Drawing from the diaries of the kibbutz's founding members, Baumel provides a detailed account of an incredible story and places the central narrative in the larger contexts of communal living, European politics after the war, and the link between European Jewry and Israeli postwar nationhood. An afterword, "Where Are They Now," briefly describes the later life of each of the original kibbutz members.

Religion & Spirituality

Judaism

During and shortly after the Second World War, six young men-emissaries of the revisionist-Zionist "Irgun" military movement in Palestinerevolutionized the AmericanJewish and Zionist scene. Judith Tydor Baumel provides the complete story of the role the Bergson group played in raising American public consciousness of Jewish and Zionist concerns. After founding a series of pro-Zionist and rescue organizations, they initiated a new form of fundraising that used the media to turn the spotlight on their activities, gaining adherents and supporters from both ends of the political and social spectrum. Long before the protest movements of the 1950s and 1960s, members of this group learned the art of courting the media in order to bring word of their existence to every part of the United States. Having energized politicians, gangsters, Hollywood moguls, and ultra- Orthodox rabbis, the handful of young men taught other Zionist and American- Jewish groups not only how the media was the message but how it could and should be used. A guiding force behind the creation of the War Refugee Board, the group served as a beacon for contemporary Zionist militancy while ultimately laying the groundwork for other organizations to utilize the media in future political campaigns.

The "Bergson Boys" and the Origins of Contemporary Zionist Militancy (Modern Jewish History)

History

Americas

Syracuse University Press

The Weight of Numbers (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Wesleyan University Press

Poetry. Jewish Studies. Judith Baumel's third book of poetry, THE KANGAROO GIRL, detects religion at the scene of many crimes: from the great disasters of the past to the small calamities of Jewish American life in the ethnic neighborhoods of New York City. THE KANGAROO GIRL is also a personal book, a meditation on being a daughter and a mother, and what it means to survive loss. "Judith Baumel's new poems are inspiring.... Sophisticated and subtle prosodic effects find their match in the poet's intellectual alertness.... An important achievement by a remarkable poet"—Wayne Koestenbaum. "I love Baumel's poems, their restless bravura intelligence, their verbal pyrotechnics leavened with sorrow and the wisdom they've earned in sorrow. THE KANGAROO GIRL is interested in everything historical, from the medieval persecution of the Jews to the toys of technology, to the stories of our bodies. She charts the inexorable changes that choose us, and those we choose"—Gail Mazur.

The Kangaroo Girl

GenPop Books

Thorny

Arrowsmith Press

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Books by Baumel, Judith