A thought-provoking history of Jewish radical movements sounded as an appeal for modern political liberation.
To the barricades.
There was a time, wrote the novelist Grace Paley, when “to be Jewish was to be socialist.” As this book argues, “Jews and their interests were an integral part of the radical tradition and vice versa.” Gluckstein and Stone, authors and activists, contend that the heart of Jewish activism came from the oppressions of Western capitalism. By placing monetary value on labor, goods, and services, capitalism stifled communal life and, in the process, privileged individual achievement. The story of the Jews is, thus, a story of achievement in the face of—or in the service of—capitalist oppression. A unique strain of radical politics grew out of urban Jewry’s identification with a laboring class. Such class identity shaped socialist and anarchist movements of the late-19th and 20th centuries. But the authors maintain that it also informs a contemporary social conscience—a shared belonging with all groups oppressed by neoliberal valuation. Today, they write, a people are not so much a group of human beings as they are impediments to resource extraction. The social engineering of the kibbutz movement, for these authors, represents a blend of leftist communal resistance and land settlement. The book, then, polemicizes leftist tendencies in modern Judaism to make a case for a distinctively anti-Zionist position. Even though Zionism emerged at the nexus of socialist secularism and revanchist politics, it has become, in the view of the authors, the instrument of “a hierarchy of oppression.” They write, “The radical Jewish tradition…shows the explosive power of a movement combining resistance with oppression and exploitation.” The book is a call to arms for people “who engage in the struggle to transform the world” into a place of righteous equality.
A thought-provoking history of Jewish radical movements sounded as an appeal for modern political liberation.Pub Date: May 19, 2026
ISBN: 9781836741756
Page Count: 386
Publisher: Verso
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered...
The incredible true story of three Jewish women who survived the Holocaust.
Priska, Rachel, and Anka were married Jewish women in their early 20s when the Nazis took control of Europe. Like millions of other Jews, they were forced to give up their normal lives, all of their belongings, and their homes. Shuttled into ghettos and then off to one of the most notorious camps, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, they suffered through the Nazis’ increasing atrocities. But these three women all held a secret: they were pregnant. They were moved from Auschwitz and ended up in Mauthausen, another notorious death camp. With facing the most horrible conditions imaginable, all three gave birth right before the Allies accepted Germany’s surrender. In this meticulously detailed account, Holden (Haatchi & Little B: The Inspiring True Story of One Boy and His Dog, 2014, etc.) compiles an enormous amount of information from interviews, letters, historical records, and personal visits to the sites where this story unfolded. The graphic history places readers in the moment and provides a sense of the enduring power of love that Priska, Rachel, and Anka had for their unborn children and for the husbands they so desperately hoped to see after the war. Even though it occurred more than 70 years ago, the story’s truth is so chillingly portrayed that it seems as if it could have happened recently. These three women and their infants survived in the face of death, and, Holden writes, “their babies went on to have babies of their own and create a second and then a third generation, all of whom continue to live their lives in defiance of Hitler’s plan to erase them from history and from memory.”
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered through at the hands of the Nazis.Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-237025-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2015
An eye-opening and thought-provoking read.
Antisemitism is alive and well and worth talking about.
Fersko, senior rabbi at the Village Temple in Manhattan and vice president of the Women’s Rabbinic Network, argues that Americans of all backgrounds must discuss antisemitism. The author notes that many people view antisemitism as a problem of the past, an issue that is rare and isolated in 21st-century America. She demonstrates convincingly that this mindset is misinformed and that antisemitism is on the rise. Early on Fersko provides a lengthy explanation of antisemitism as “the longest-held, farthest-reaching conspiracy theory in the world.” She explains that antisemitism is a belief in a variety of lies and stereotypes about Jews and Judaism, which manifests in everything from seemingly innocuous remarks to outright physical violence. Fersko points to seven points of dialogue that Jews and non-Jews need to address in order to help battle antisemitism, including race, Christianity, microaggressions, the Holocaust, and Israel. Throughout, she urges readers to educate themselves about the past and to learn to recognize the prejudices about Jews that many Americans inherit unknowingly. Though Fersko addresses such obvious sources of antisemitism as right-wing and racially based extremist groups, she makes it clear throughout the book that the American left is also a major source of antisemitism today. In some cases, this is seen in virulent anti-Israel stances, where left-wing activists portray Jews as racists and oppressors. In other cases, American liberals simply perpetrate tropes and stereotypes about their Jewish friends and neighbors, often through microaggressions, misplaced humor, miseducation about the Holocaust, etc. Though there are certainly points for debate, the text serves as a meaningful starting point for dialogue. If nothing else, she provides the important reminder that the age-old specter of antisemitism is not extinct; in many ways, it’s stronger and more dangerous than at any time since the Holocaust.
An eye-opening and thought-provoking read.Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2023
ISBN: 9781541601949
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Seal Press
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
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