Progressive Jewish Culture in the Americas

NERINA VISACOVSKY

Philadelphia, Pensilvania

Conferencia; Yiddish Culture Festival; 2023

Haverford College Spanish Department

The history of the non-Zionist Jewish leftists in different countries is fascinating. It formed a tradition of unusual richness, which brought together radicalized wings of the workers' world, distinguished figures of the intellectual milieu, several of the most advanced expressions of the aesthetic avant-garde, educational initiatives of great ambition, creative experiences of cultural sociability to attend to spare time and an intense politicization around emancipatory causes, in the struggle against pogroms, repression, fascism, xenophobia and capitalism. Nerina Visacovsky offers us the first attempt at a global continental mapping of an important part of the history of the Jewish leftist community and its connections with communist parties in the region. Progressive Jewish Culture in the Americas is an invitation to explore this complex world where ethnic and political identities have been crossed. In these eight countries, Yiddish, socialist and communist collectives converged to give life to cultural and educational institutions that have left significant traces in the leftist traditions of their respective nations.