The Radical Jewish Tradition - Vancouver book launch

7:00PM, Sunday May 3

Spartacus Books, 1983 Commercial Dr, Vancouver
on the unceded, traditional and ancestral lands of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish Nations.

Join us for 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.

About the author:

Janey Stone’s mother came to Australia in 1938 to join part of her family. All the family members who remained in Poland died in the Holocaust. Janey is a life-long socialist, political activist and writer. She was a member of the International Socialists in Berkeley 1969-1971 and has remained a supporter of the concept of socialism from below ever since. Janey was also involved in the Women’s Liberation Movement and the anti-Vietnam war movement, has been an active trade unionist and as an anti-Zionist Jew is a committed supporter of Palestine. Her book The Radical Jewish Tradition, co-written with Donny Gluckstein, is a contribution to this struggle.