The Roots of American Jewish Activism: Creating a New Genealogy

• In Event: Twentieth-Century American Jews as Activists

Abstract

The images so often illustrate early 20th-century American Jewish histories that they have become cliché. Young garment workers, wearing huge hairbows and determined expressions, march to demand shorter hours and better working conditions. Their descendants are justifiably proud of the role that their forebears played in the American labor movement, but scholarly claims that this is the starting point for a politically active lineage of American Jews don’t hold up under scrutiny. Most workers in these photos, in fact, disappeared from the public eye after their personal situations improved. If the story of American Jewish activism is pegged to these figures and their particular demands, it would appear to be a short-lived phenomenon.
And yet, American Jews have remained at the forefront of many social movements, often reaching beyond personal concerns to advocate for groups outside the parameters of their own experience. From tenants’ rights organizers in the 1930s, to 1940s and ‘50s civil libertarians, from 1960s civil rights workers to leaders of the American women’s movement in the 1970s and beyond, and to current movements for environmental and social justice, Jews can be found in the vanguard of those who challenge America to fulfill its promises of equality and opportunity.
But whom can we identify as the progenitors of this wide-ranging activism, if not the young activists of the garment industry? For this, we turn to a group of left-wing Jewish artists, active from the 1910s through the 1930s, who devoted much of their energy to advancing the causes of groups outside their personal orbits. From campaigns against lynching and other scourges of racist America, to fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War, to coal miners’ rights and the plight of Depression-era homeless people, these artists not only raised the consciousness of their communities but inspired later generations of American Jews in the civil rights, anti-war, and urban justice movements of the sixties and beyond. This paper also proposes a typology of American Jewry that seeks to explain their activism when compared to other groups in America, and to Jews in other modern societies.

Author

• Lauren B. Strauss, American University