Dov Ber Borochov (1881-1917) was an early Zionist thinker who reconciled Judaism and Marxism.

Dov Ber Borochov was born in an obscure Ukranian village in 1881 and died of pneumonia while on a speaking tour of Russia in 1917. In his brief lifespan he became what some described as a modern Moses Maimonides. That medieval philosopher had reconciled Judaism and Aristotelian thought. Borochov, perhaps the finest of the early Zionist thinkers, reconciled Judaism and Marxism. While orthodox Marxism contended that nationalism, no less than religion, was an opiate of the people, Borochov distinguished between two types of nationalism. The first type was that of the dominant group; the second was the expression of the dominated. His philosophical acumen enabled him to show how Marxist theory could be utilized for the sake of Jewish nationalism.

He was not only concerned with theory but also with organizing Jewish workers. His influence on...