BA, Hebrew University (Jerusalem)
MA, PhD, New York University
902-457-6739
msvu.ca
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.
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,” supported by a SSHRC grant, is 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.
His articles are:
“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.
“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. (French translation of “Socialist Mass Politics through Sport: The Bund’s Morgnshtern in Poland, 1926-1939.”)
“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.
“The Israeli Right: Nationalism, Militarism and Messianism.” Journal of Social and Political Thought 1 (1998).
Dr. Gechtman teaches modern European history, western history, and global history. In 2008-2009 he will teach the following courses:
HIST 2202: Medieval History
HIST 2205: Europe in the Twentieth Century
HIST 3385: Selected Topics in Twentieth-Century History: Modern Russia and the Soviet Union