the jewish left

Very lit­tle has appeared online that deals with the activ­i­ties of the Jew­ish left dur­ing the 1960s and ’70s. I try to make up for that lack here by report­ing on what I did with my peers in the Los Ange­les area (the Jew­ish Rad­i­cal Com­mu­ni­ty of Los Ange­les). All of this mate­r­i­al, and more, will be avail­able at appro­pri­ate archives soon.

• The Hurvitz Family’s Yom Kip­pur Leaflet called for an end to the war in Viet­nam (1966).
  The leaflet (print­ed on white paper (the col­or of the scan is not true)) was dis­trib­uted out­side of a num­ber of syn­a­gogues in Los Ange­les fol­low­ing Yom Kip­pur ser­vices 5727 (1966). the text; a scan of the front of the leaflet; a scan of the back of the leaflet.
  “Mom” Faye Hurvitz dis­trib­uted the leaflet once again due to the cur­rent (Autumn 2004) polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in the U.S. in rela­tion to the war in Iraq. It has received nods of recog­ni­tion for its prescience.
• Some thoughts about Abra­ham Joshua Hes­chel on the 25^th anniver­sary of his death.

the Jewish Radical Community

• The Con­fer­ence on Jew­ish Action was held May 9–11, 1969. It served as the orga­niz­ing meet­ing of the Jew­ish Rad­i­cal Com­mu­ni­ty of Los Angeles.

leaflets and other materials of the Jewish Radical Community of Los Angeles

the founding letter:

Sep­tem­ber 19, 1969

We write to you as founder mem­bers of an entire­ly new Jew­ish group in Los Ange­les, the Jew­ish Rad­i­cal Com­mu­ni­ty, which bearsno ties with any oth­er orga­ni­za­tion whatsoever.

newsletters and leaflets:

• The first newslet­ter: Octo­ber 12, 1969
• Notice of forum on “Jews in Social­ist Countries—Views From the Jew­ish Left” March 24. 1971

• RESIST
  WARSAW GHETTO: 1943—JEWISH RESISTANCE
  WATTS GHETTO: 1969—BLACK RESISTANCE; (undat­ed & unnum­bered leaflet, cir­ca 1969)
• To Be A Jew On Amer­i­ca’s Terms (undat­ed & unnum­bered leaflet, cir­ca 1970)
• The Mis-Edu­ca­tion Of The Amer­i­can Jew; (undat­ed & unnum­bered leaflet, cir­ca 1970).
• Amer­i­can Oppres­sion Divides Black and Jew; the first leaflet of the Jew­ish Rad­i­cal Com­mu­ni­ty of Los Ange­les (leaflet #1 א; Jan­u­ary 5, 1970).
• The Life of Man Springs From the Tree; the sec­ond leaflet of the Jew­ish Rad­i­cal Com­mu­ni­ty of Los Ange­les (leaflet #2 ב; Jan­u­ary 19, 1970).
• Call to protest ZOA awards giv­en to George Put­nam and George Mur­phy; Feb­ru­ary 15, 1970, at the Ambas­sador Hotel; (unnum­bered & undat­ed leaflet).
• Israel And Amer­i­can Jew­ry; (undat­ed & unnum­bered leaflet, cir­ca Feb­ru­ary 15, 1970).
• In Sup­port of Dis­sent in Israel (leaflet #5; April 16, 1970).
• Call for the Seder “Let Our Peo­ple Go” (“PASSOVER CELEBRATION IN THE DESERT; STARTING in the Egypt­ian ghet­to of Goshen… STOPPING at the Red Sea… ENDING in the wilder­ness”) (leaflet April 23, 1970).
• AUSCHWITZ: 1943 | MY LAI: 1968 … OUR TOWN IS BURNING BROTHERS; (leaflet April 26, 1970).
• To the Board of the Jew­ish Fed­er­a­tion Coun­cil (regard­ing uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents’ strike against the war in Viet­nam; (leaflet May 11, 1970)
• A com­par­i­son of the strug­gles of Sovi­et Jew­ish Pris­on­er of Con­science Boris Kochu­biyevsky and Black Pan­ther Bob­by Seale Free Boris Free Bob­by (leaflet #8 ח; August 7, 1970).
• Nev­er Say That You Have Reached The Very End (a cri­tique of the Jew­ish Defense League JDL); (undat­ed & unnum­bered leaflet, cir­ca 1970).
• Social­ist Human­ism not Sovi­et Inhu­man­i­ty; (undat­ed & unnum­bered leaflet, cir­ca Jan­u­ary 1971).
• Jews And America—An Ill-Fat­ed Affair; (undat­ed & unnum­bered leaflet, cir­ca Sep­tem­ber 19, 1971, ראש השנה).
• Call for A Gala Tri-Gen­er­a­tional Jew­ish Left Pic­nic (April 30, 1972)

the JRC and the Vietnam War

• The text of the People’s Peace Treaty was dis­trib­uted by the Jew­ish Rad­i­cal Com­mu­ni­ty of Los Ange­les. And scans of the pam­phlet that accom­pa­nied it: The front; the back; sup­port­ing mate­ri­als inside poet­ry; the argu­ment: a Torah-based case against the war by Rab­bi Moshe Adler; con­tin­ued; and The Viet­nam War and the Needs of the Jew­ish Com­mu­ni­ty.

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• The Jew­ish Rad­i­cal Com­mu­ni­ty’s “Let Our Peo­ple Go” Hag­gadah (1^st, 1970 edi­tion (From Goshen to the Ocean to the Wilderness.))