Description
Book SynopsisJewish anarchism has long been marginalized in histories of anarchist thought and action. Anna Elena Torres and Kenyon Zimmer edit a collection of essays which recovers many aspects of this erased tradition. Contributors bring to light the presence and persistence of Jewish anarchism throughout histories of radical labor, women's studies, political theory, multilingual literature, and ethnic studies. These essays reveal an ongoing engagement with non-Jewish radical cultures, including the translation practices of the Jewish anarchist press. Jewish anarchists drew from a matrix of secular, cultural, and religious influences, inventing new anarchist forms that ranged from mystical individualism to militantly atheist revolutionary cells. With Freedom in Our Ears brings together more than a dozen scholars and translators to write the first collaborative history of international, multilingual, and transdisciplinary Jewish anarchism.
Trade Review“This volume vividly recaptures the lost world of Jewish anarchism, tracing its political imaginaries as well as the social structures and practices that it built. Spanning multiple continents and centuries, it offers a new way of approaching the Jewish radical experience in the past--and potentially rethinking its possibilities in the present.”--Faith C. Hillis, author of
Utopia's Discontents: Russian Émigrés and the Quest for Freedom, 1830s–1930s“This is the first book of its kind in English and each contribution is original and important. Not only does the collection add to the quantity of studies, it steers research on the subject in new directions. Traditionally, anarchism’s connections to religious thought have been ignored, the presumption being they have nothing to do with one another. These authors show otherwise.”--Tony Michels, author of
Jewish Radicals: A Documentary HistoryTable of ContentsAcknowledgments
Note on Transliteration
Introduction. Freedom’s Fullness: An Introduction to Jewish Anarchisms
Anna Elena Torres and Kenyon Zimmer
Chapter 1. Johann Most and Yiddish Anarchism, 1876-1906
Tom Goyens
Chapter 2. Political Satire in the Yiddish Anarchist Press, 1890-1918
Binyamin Hunyadi
Chapter 3. Jewish Anarchist Temporalities
Samuel Hayim Brody
Chapter 4. The Debate on Expropriations in Early Twentieth-Century Russian Anarchism
Inna Shtakser
Chapter 5. Translation, Politics, Pragmatism, and the American Yiddish Press
Ayelet Brinn
Chapter 6. Jews and North American Anarcho-Syndicalism: The Jewish Leadership of the Union of Russian Workers
Mark Grueter
Chapter 7. The Storm of Revolution: The Fraye Arbeter Shtime Reports on the Russian Revolution of 1905
Renny Hahamovitch
Chapter 8. Divine Fire: Alfred Stieglitz’s Anarchism
Allan Antliff
Chapter 9. In the Jewish Tower: Prison Stories by a Forgotten Anarchist
Ania Aizman
Chapter 10. Jewish-American Anarchist Women, 1920-1950: The Politics of Sexuality
Elaine Leeder
Conclusion. The Past and Futures of Jewish Anarchist History
Anna Elena Torres and Kenyon Zimmer
Contributors
Index
