Before the Second World War, the majority of Jews were working class and part of a wider struggle alongside their non-Jewish comrades on the left. The book celebrates Jewish radicalism from the Tsarist Empire to Poland and Germany, from London to New York.

To illuminate this background, the issue of Jewish identity is analysed along political, cultural, and sociological lines. Fighting oppression and exploitation took numerous political forms, including left Zionism, Bundism and revolutionary Marxism. Far from the Zionist stereotype of the ultimate victims, Jews were revolutionaries, resistance fighters and firebrands. This inspiring radical tradition was ultimately checked by the callous indifference of governments to refugees and the horror of Auschwitz.

Guest speakers:

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.

Janey Stone 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, Poland, and by Jews, and many other topics including women workers, sexual politics, the Middle East, and the radical Jewish tradition.