"Di Linke: the Yiddish Immigrant Left from Popular Front to Cold War" explores the history, cultural and political activities of the Jewish People’s Fraternal Order (JPFO), a significant component of the Yiddishist immigrant Jewish Left. The JPFO, the Jewish section of the Soviet-oriented multi-ethnic International Workers Order (IWO), was shut down with the IWO during the Cold War when its funds and organizational archives were confiscated. Much of the material discussed is from the now partially-digitized IWO/JPFO archive housed at Cornell’s ILR School Kheel Center.
In this session: Jonathan Karp, Jennifer Young, Robert Zecker, Caroline Luce, and David Ost on the JPFO’s intersectionality with black and feminist activism, Black Jewish relations, immigrants fighting fascism, fraternalism and the Cold War shut-down.