Jewish

Discussion of anti-semitism and the left is frought with difficulty, not least because of the efforts of right-wing groups like the Anti-Defamation League to paint all criticism of Israel as anti-semitic, and thus silence dissent.

Their book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy claims that the lobby leads the US into acting against its national interest, and that the Iraq war was a result of the lobby's influence.

We reproduce the article for reference only. The list of names is attached at the bottom of the article.

Why won't anyone say they are Jewish?

The news that president Bush vetoed Israeli plans to attack Iranian nuclear facilities whilst visiting the country in May should, with some luck, permanently put to bed the belief shared by conservatives, liberals and leftists alike in the “Israel Lobby”, and its grip on US interests.

Alexander Schapiro was born into a Jewish family with a Hasidic background in Novozybkov in the Ukraine on October 11th 1889 or 6th August 1890. This is the date given by his son Alexander, but it is not clear whether this was by the Julian or Gregorian calendar! In addition the Red Cross report of 1957 on him give two different birth dates, one of 10/11/1889 and one of 11/10/1889!

Anti-Semitism and National Socialism
By Moishe Postone

Lev Zadov was born on April 11th 1893 in the small Jewish farming settlement of Veselaya in southern Ukraine. Around 1898-1900 his family fell on hard times and moved to Yuzovka, in the Donetsk region, where his father worked as a coachman.

A salute to a comrade,

Grigorii Gorelik, usually known as Anatolii Gorelik was born into a Jewish family in 1889. He became an anarchist in 1904, at the age of fourteen. He was active in the Ukraine, and was arrested several times by the Tsarist police.

“He was the most modest of men” - Rudolf Rocker
Woolf Wess was born to a Jewish family in Vilkomar (or Ukmerge) near Kovno in Lithuania in 1861.

He was the son of a Hasidic master baker and at age of 12 was apprenticed to a shoemaker.

Yarchuk, Efim Zakharovich aka Khaim Zakharev - Also rendered as Yarchook, Yartchuk, Iarchuk etc.

“a man who enjoyed exceptional influence among the sailors and workers and whose idealism and devotion are matters of historic record” - My Disillusionment in Russia. Emma Goldman

Mollie Steimer: An Anarchist Life
By Paul Avrich

Originally published in Vol. 5, No. 1 of the Trotskyist journal Revolutionary History.
Reprinted in Echanges et Mouvement no 80/81, 1996.

Erich Muehsam was born in Berlin in 1878 into a fairly well-to-do Jewish family. Soon after his family moved to Luebeck in north Germany where his father worked as a pharmacist (in fact the pharmacy is still there).

In the pletzl (Marais) and in Montmartre in Paris (pictured, above), Jewish anarchists had a real influence. In 1907, police reports indicated the presence of about 450 anarcho-communists, an enormous figure if one realises that the immigrant Jewish population living in Paris at the time was about 20,000.

Jacques Doubinsky
Aka Iakov Dubinsky, born 26 March 1889 - Ukraine, died 18 February 1959 - France

Born in 1914 in Budapest, David Stetner passed the great part of his adolescence in the Bukovina. His family was unstable but relatively cultured. His mother was a great fan of German literature. He became interested in anarchist ideas at the age of 17 and started attending secret meetings held in the woods outside the town of Czernovitz.

American defeat: an anti-state communist perspective on the Iraq war

Emma Goldman was born in 1869 in a Jewish ghetto in Russia where her family ran a small inn. When she was 13 the family moved to St Petersburg. It was just after the assassination of Alexander II and so was a time of political repression. The Jewish community suffered a wave of pogroms.

Ida Mett
Born Ida Gilman, July 1901 - Smorgon’, Russia, died 27 June 1973 - Paris, France