The Jewish Anarchist Movement in America

A Historical Review and Personal Reminiscences

Joseph Cohen, Esther Dolgoff

• Publisher: AK Press
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781849355483
• eBook ISBN: 9781849355490
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Anarchism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Essential reading in Jewish labor history, culture, and radicalism.

Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe once comprised the largest segment of the anarchist movement in the United States. Part historical excavation and part memoir, Joseph Cohen chronicles both well-known events and behind-the-scenes conflicts among radicals, as well as profiles of famous personalities like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman and of the rank-and-file radicals who sustained the anarchist movement across North America from the 1880s to the 1940s.

The Jewish Anarchist Movement in America brings Joseph Cohen’s irreplaceable 1945 Yiddish-language study of America’s Jewish anarchists to an English-speaking audience for the first time and remains the most detailed examination of this neglected history.

The book also contains Cohen’s own reflections on anarchist theory and tactics, based upon his experiences and observations over four decades. Edited and fully annotated, this edition includes a wealth of supplementary information about the people, places, and events central to American anarchist history.

Table of contents

• Editor’s Preface
• List of Acronyms
• Introduction: Joseph Jacob Cohen (1878–1953) and the Jewish Anarchist Movement
• Esther Dolgoff (1905–1989): A Biographical Sketch
• Author’s Preface to the 1945 Yiddish Edition
• Part One: Historical Overview
• Part Two: In Philadelphia, 1903–1913
• Part Three: In and around New York, 1913–1932
• Part Four: The Great Depression and the Second World War