Of Judges - Scotland, Christians and Labour Zionism
More than a few of us Scottish Christian Socialists and Scottish Christians on the Left are profoundly influenced by the philosophy of a contemporary political thinker and Labour peer called Maurice Glasman. Maurice is the founder of the political tendency known as Blue Labour, which is in part, inspired by Bundism. The Jewish Labour Bund was a secular Jewish Socialist movement found in Lithuania, Poland and Russia in the 1890's, based on the principles of solidarity, mutualism, autonomy and local democracy. Maurice also often speaks about the politics of his father who was a Labour Zionist and his mother who came from a working class family in Stamford Hill and was a lifelong Labour supporter. Likewise, Christian Socialists with a special interest in civil society cannot think or talk about cooperatives without any reference to the impact of the Jewish Labour Movement. Just as I’ve learned a great deal from Maurice, so too have I been fortunate enough to learn from leade