Many radical and anarchist Jews such as Emma Goldman,Alexander Berkman and Rudolf Rocker never denied their Jewishness they just did not fetishize it like the Zionists. In fact one cannot say that it is because they were pre-Holocaust Jews. The Pogroms against Jews have been conducted by Christian Europe since the 12th Century. And like many East European Jews Emmas family left becuase the Russians had conducted a campaigns of pogroms against Jews since after the death of Catherine the Great.
"We are neither traitors to the Jewish people nor traitors to our Palestinian comrades. We are Jewish anti-Zionists. We are genuinely Jewish–although we may disagree among us about exactly what it means to be Jewish. And we are genuinely anti-Zionists."
After writing the first part of this essay months ago I realized that my endeavor was unfinished, and that questions still remain about the collective identity of anti-Zionist Jews. Left-Zionists and a smaller group of Marxists have predominated in the anti-Occupation movement for so long that it is necessary to establish our identity both as Jews and as anti-Zionists. Although my book was composed as an affirmation of the Jewishness of anti-Zionism (although a couple of my interlocutors did not define themselves as Jewish) over and against the Jewish establishment which claims we are self-hating Jews, I had not yet contended with the critics on the left who argue that the political identification of oneself as Jewish necessarily binds one to a self-definition and praxis which is quintessentially Zionist. The most prominent spokespersons for this group of anti-Zionists are Gilad Atzmon, Paul Eisen and Israel Shamir.
Atzmon who has considerable influence in Europe, and whose adherents include a growing number of Marxists as well as the American activist and writer Jeff Blankfort, argues that persons who oppose Zionism in the name of their Jewish identity are either disingenuous or unwittingly serving the Zionist cause. Like many Jews I find his argument offensive. The anti-Zionist faction of the Jewish anti-Occupation movement is young and it has not assertively contested the challenges to its integrity and identity launched by Atzmon and others in the name of humanism, Marxism or working class internationalism. Thus it lacks a solid basis for its own praxis. My project is consonant with and complements that of the prolific Jewish theologian Marc Ellis who has not however answered those on the left who are critical of his perspective. Atzmon’s argument functions as a foil which has provided me with an opportunity to elaborate a theoretical legitimation for the Jewish anti-Zionist tendency in the anti-Occupation movement. I believe this tendency requires a theoretical foundation in order to maintain its momentum and growth. If Atzmon’s perspective was adopted and the fledgling Jewish anti-Zionists were to repudiate their Jewish identity, as he would like, the anti-Occupation movement would be disastrously weakened, and its future prospects would be eclipsed.
And it is important to note here that it was the New York Jewish Anarchist movement that kept Yiddish alive as the written and spoken language of non-religious Jews. With the death of the last of these went the death of secular Jewish language and literature and its recuperation into Zionism and religious Judaism. Today across North America Hebrew the language of religion, of the old Testament the Torah is taught.
Freie Arbeiter Stimme ("Free Voice of Labor"), the main Yiddish-Anarchist newspaper in the United States from 1890 until its demise in 1977. Leading anarchists such as Emma Goldman and Rudolf Rocker wrote for it. A young Noam Chomsky, later to become a leftwing intellectual cult figure, when in New York City repeatedly visited its offices at 45 West 17th Street to marinate his mind in its rarified political atmosphere. Between 1970 and 1980 Joe Conason did filmed interviews to document stories about the newspaper and his anarchist grandfather.
This is what has led to the contradicition that Faber addresses in his well written and expository essay that while it is lengthy is well worth reading.
The Life of Rudolf Rocker
Anarchy in Interpretation: The Life of Emma Goldman"Red Emma" Goldman's Jewish Anarchism
NYU Libraries | Guide to Yiddish Speaking Labor and Radical
John Patten (ed.)
Yiddish Anarchist Bibliography
Kate Sharpley Library/ Anarchist Archives Project, 1998. 32p, 30cm. 1-873605-27-7 large pamphlet £7.50 / $12
A listing of papers, books and pamphlets from the Yiddish-language anarchist movement, with titles in Yiddish, transliterated and translated.
In addition to a long and detailed catalogue, what this bibliography has to offer is an insight into the lives of thousands of militants, sometimes famous, sometimes nameless, and into their concerted struggle for a better world. — Pinelli Archive bulletin
The Harris Collection - Yiddish-American Literature
Radical Visions: Graphic Satire in the Yiddish Press
David Edelstadt, 1866-1892 - libcom.org | history
David Edelstadt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A Homage to William Herrick
Jack (Yankel) Frager, 1903-1998 - libcom.org | history
Mollie Steimer: An Anarchist Life - By Paul Avrich
anthony rudolf on fermin rocker
SOLOMON, Sidney (Pogost, Bekarus, Dec. 8, 1911-New York, 2004)