The Radical Jewish Tradition: Revolutionaries, Resistance Fighters and Firebrands - Paperback

by Donny Gluckstein (Author), Janey Stone (Author)

An inspiring account of Jewish socialist struggles against Tsarist pogroms, exploitative sweatshops, and murderous Nazis across three continents

The Radical Jewish Tradition recovers a neglected and suppressed history of Jewish resistance to oppression. Collected here are sto­ries of heroism and selflessness that trace their origins to resis­tance against the nineteenth-century Tsarist Empire. These radical Jews--most of them working class--found common cause with oth­er oppressed groups. They refused to be defined as victims.

This inspiring tradition was ultimately checked by the callous indif­ference of capitalist governments to refugees before the Second World War and to the Holocaust. Donny Gluckstein and Janey Stone revive this history for the benefit of a world in crisis. They consider this legacy and its impact on modern Jewish identity. At a time when a bellicose Israeli government claims to represent Jews the world over, the history of these radicals bursts the constraints placed on the historical imagination.

Here is a story central to the socialist movement as well as an ob­ject lesson for all those struggling to resist.

Author Biography

Donny Gluckstein is the son of an anti-Zionist Jewish Palestinian refugee father and Jewish South African mother. He is the author of several works that touch on the subject matter of this book, including The Nazis, Capitalism and the Working Class, A People's History of the Second World War, The Western Soviets and The Tragedy of Bukharin. He edited Fighting on all Fronts: Popular Resistance in the Second World War. Donny lives in Edinburgh (UK) and continues to write books on revolutionary and socialist topics while in retirement.

Janey Stone's mother sought refuge in Australia from Polish antisemitism in the 1930s. Janey is a lifelong socialist and political activist; she has been a union delegate and participated in the student, anti-Vietnam war and women's liberation movements. As an anti-Zionist Jew, she has written and presented about resistance to the Nazis in Germany and Poland, and by Jews, and many other topics including women workers, sexual politics, the Middle East and the radical Jewish tradition. Janey is retired and lives in Melbourne (Australia). She has a leadership role in Interventions, Australia's only independent not-for-profit radical publishing company.