“communism”
Review
Review of Salud y Shalom: Conversations with Jewish Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade by Joseph Butwin
Emily Robins Sharpe
Joseph Butwin’s Salud y Shalom is a long-awaited exploration of the motivations that brought hundreds of Jewish American volunteers to Spain in the late 1930s to fight in the country’s nominally civil war. Through detailed conversations with ten veterans, Butwin elicits fascinating reflections on their experiences and era.
Apr 27, 2026
Review
Review of Ben Gold’s Your Comrade, Avreml Broide, A Worker’s Life Story, translated by Annie Sommer Kaufman
Patrick Chura
A valuable feature of Avreml Broide is the chance it offers to take a deep dive into the world of twentieth century radical left activism to understand essentials of the CPUSA as an American subculture.
Nov 20, 2024
Blog
Briv funem arkhiv: A Long-Lost Letter from the Author’s Great-Grandfather to Moishe Nadir
Sam Glauber-Zimra
A letter from a devoted reader to Moyshe Nadir, detailing the personal struggles and ideological misgivings of a disillusioned Communist.
Feb 20, 2023
Review
Review of Songs in Dark Times: Yiddish Poetry of Struggle from Scottsboro to Palestine by Amelia M. Glaser
Emily Robins Sharpe
Oct 21, 2021
Interview
Anti-fascist Yiddish Song: Shneer and Eisenberg on Lin Jaldati
Erin Faigin
Lin Jaldati was a secular Dutch Jew who brought Yiddish music to communist East Germany. Now, Jewlia Eisenberg and David Shneer are reviving her music and investigating her revolutionary life.
Feb 28, 2016
Interview
"We Should Not Create Enemies": Europe's Refugee Crisis and Yiddish Song
Sonia Gollance
Austrian shepherd Hans Breuer on driving refugees across the border, and getting famous for singing Yiddish songs.
Feb 23, 2016