Dr. James Petras
During the first half of the 20th century, socially conscious Jews in the United States organized a large network of solidarity and charity associations financed mostly through small donations, raffles, dues by working and lower middle class supporters.
Many of these associations dealt with the everyday needs of Jewish workers, immigrants and families in need. Some were linked to labor unions, social democratic and leftist parties. Their leaders were in many cases leaders who worked long hours engaged in resolving problems and intervening in local crises.
They drew a paycheck – (when funding was available) – comparable to a skilled worker. A few women’s groups like the Hadassah went door to door in predominantly Jewish commercial districts, hitting up Jewish and non-Jewish storekeepers with raffle tickets to purchase beds in Hebrew hospitals in Palestine/Israel. The predominant ethic was improving the livelihood of Jews in America, joining with the America left and labor groups in united fronts against fascism and domestic, ethnic and racial supremacist organizations. Up until the establishment of Israel, Zionist organizations were a small minority in the Jewish community, especially among working class Jews.
Growing up in a multi-ethnic working class community (Lynn, Massachusetts) most of our Jewish friends and neighbors were workers and small shopkeepers: house painters, bookeepers, carpenters, truck drivers (Gatso Feldman), window repairers (a long white bearded rabbi), junk collectors (Stone) on a horse drawn wagon calling for business with his whiskey hoarse voice (“rax, rax, rax”), butchers, bakers, drug store owners, tailors (“Sam you made the pants too long”), fur and leather workers (Goldie Goldstein) and a few owners), warehousemen. On the shady side there were poolroom hustlers (Marty Z), prostitutes (Sophie K) and gangsters (Louie F). In the mid-1950’s Jews and non-Jews were engaged in a punch-out with the (anti-Semitic) Feeneyites on Boston Common.
But by the late 1940’s changes began to take place under the pressure of events: as my Jewish college friend Paul L tells it One day the photo of Karl Marx, at the front of his Yiddish classroom was taken down and replaced by one of Theodore Herzl the founding father of Zionism. The reasons were two-fold: Joseph McCarthy the anti-communist was coming to town to interrogate and blacklist United Electrical Workers leaders at the local giant General Electric plant. Secondly, the founding of Israel converted the Yiddish social democratic directors from leftists to Zionists and Zionists were not on McCarthy’s agenda. By the mid-1950’s, the right turn among the Jewish labor associations was visible – literally! One night after our studies, I met up with two Jewish friends and we walked to Peter’s bar (10 cent beers with a rancid taste). On our way, my friends argued leftwing politics – Paul for social democracy, Lenny for Trotskyism – I was the audience and potential adherent. As we passed the store window of the Workingman’s Circle (a Yiddish pro-labor organization) Lenny stopped and triumphantly pointed to a sign in the window – a marine recruitment poster! Paul was crushed.
At 14 years, I went to work at my father’s fish store in neighboring Revere, where the vast majority of customers were Jews, many immigrants from Vilnius. Though there were several Jewish owned Jewish fish markets – my father competed successfully based on his daily trip to Atlantic Avenue piers in Boston to purchase fish caught the night before by Italian fishermen living in the North End.
Read more
Israel Lobby: The Bully, Blackmail & Blacklist Politics against Critics of Israel and its Zionist Appendages - See more at: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/01/15/the-israel-first-industry-ceo-profiteering/#sthash.itscu6Rh.dpuf
Israel Lobby: The Bully, Blackmail & Blacklist Politics against Critics of Israel and its Zionist Appendages - See more at: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/01/15/the-israel-first-industry-ceo-profiteering/#sthash.itscu6Rh.dpuf
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