Roni Gechtman

Associate Professor
BA, Hebrew University (Jerusalem)
MA, PhD, New York University

Roni Gechtman came to the Mount in 2004, after teaching at the University of King’s College (Halifax) for two years. He grew up in Buenos Aires (Argentina) and lived in Jerusalem, New York, Toronto and Vancouver. He completed his PhD at New York University with a specialization in Modern European History and Jewish History. His doctoral dissertation, “Yidisher Sotsializm: The Origin and Contexts of the Jewish Labor Bund’s National Program,” explored the development of the views and proposals concerning national minorities advanced by the Yiddish-speaking Jewish labour movement (the Bund) in early twentieth-century Russia and Poland.

Teaching

Dr. Gechtman teaches modern European history, Medieval history and contemporary World history. He regularly offers these courses:

HIST 1102 – The West and the World: From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment
HIST 1103 – The West and the World: From the French Revolution to the Modern Day
HIST 2202 Medieval Europe
HIST 2208 – From Optimism to Destruction: Europe 1890-1933
HIST 2209 – Catastrophe and Rebirth: Europe, 1929 To 1999
HIST 2289 The World in the Postwar Era
HIST 3382 European Nationalism
HIST 3385 The Soviet Experiment: Russia and the USSR from Alexander Ii To Gorbachev
HIST 4480 History Seminar (Europe)

Research

Dr. Gechtman’s current research project, “National-Cultural Autonomy in the Making: The Implementation of the Jewish Labour Bund’s National Program in Interwar Poland,” 0is an examination of the practical implementation of the Polish Bund’s program on nations and nationalities through a detailed reconstruction of the party’s wide range of cultural and recreational activities.

Dr. Gechtman’s recent publications include:

“Jews and Non-Territorial Autonomy: Political Programmes and Historical Perspectives,” Ethnopolitics 15:1 (January 2016): 66-88.
“Nationalizing the Bund? Zionist Historiography and the Jewish Labour Movement,” East European Jewish Affairs 43:3 (December 2013): 249-64.
“Creating a Historical Narrative for a Spiritual Nation: Simon Dubnow and the Politics of the Jewish Past,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 22:2 (2011): 98-124.
“The Jewish Labour Bund, the Second International, and the Debate on the National and Jewish Questions.” In August Grabski, ed. Studies on the Jewish Left Anti-Zionists. Warsaw: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. Emanuela Ringelbluma, 2011, 11-45.
“The Polish Bund’s Morgnshtern and the Theory and Practice of Workers’ Sport, 1926-1939.” In Toni Niewerth, Jurek, Tomasz, and Mattausch, Wolf-Dieter, eds. Jüdischer Sport Und Jüdische Gesellschaft = Jewish Sport and Jewish Community. Berlin: Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz, Gedenk- und Bildungsstätte; Gorzów Wielkopolski: Akademia Wychowania Fizycznego w Poznaniu. Zamiejscowy Wydzial Kultury Fizycznej, 2010, 131–61.
“A ‘Museum of Bad Taste’?: The Jewish Labour Bund and the Bolshevik Position Regarding the National Question, 1903-1914.” Canadian Journal of History/Annales canadiennes d’histoire 43:1 (Spring 2008): 31-67.
“National-Cultural Autonomy and ‘Neutralism’: Vladimir Medem’s Marxist Analysis of the National Question, 1903-1920.” Socialist Studies 3:1 (Spring 2007): 69-92.
“Conceptualizing National-Cultural Autonomy: From the Austro-Marxists to the Jewish Labor Bund.” Jahrbuch des Simon-Dubnow-Instituts 4 (2005): 17-49.
“The Rise of the Bund as Reflected in the Naye Folkstsaytung, 1935-1936.” Gal-Ed 17 (2000): 29-55.
“Socialist Mass Politics through Sport: The Bund’s Morgnshtern in Poland, 1926-1939.” Journal of Sport History 26:2 (Summer 1999): 326-352. Available online here. French translation: “La politique socialiste de masse à travers le sport: l’exemple du Morgnshtern, club bundiste polonais, 1926-1939.” Cahiers du Judaïsme 21 (Spring 2007): 37-55.