IN DEFENSE OF HUMAN RIGHTS.
New York, Jewish Labor Committee, 1941. Item #42890
1st edition. Original printed paper wrappers, square 8vo (with secondary vertical fold as issued), 15 pages
A 1941 collection of essays on the work of the Jewish Labor Committee by its own leaders as well as from Jewish and Labor leaders across the US and Europe, all writing about the JLC’s work fighting fascism and assisting refugees and resistance fighters in work to defeat the Nazis. Includes a “Summary Statement of Receipts and disbursements for the year ending December 31, 1940” on the final page.
The final page lists the 8 “Aims and Objectives of the Jewish Labor Committee” which include:
- “To fight for the protection of the civil, political and religious rights of the Jews masses in all countries and to encourage and to aid all progressive and democratic elements throughout the world in their struggle against fascism, nazism, reaction and anti-Semitism.
- To aid in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Jewish life on a productive basis.
- To fight for the right of free immigration in all countries including Palestine.
- To aid Jewish and labor refugees and other victims of fascist persecution.
- To carry on on and to intensify the boycott against nazi-made goods and services
Others contributing essays include Max Ascoli, Noach [sic, leader of the Polish Bund], Jacob Kenner, & Ben-Adir [sic]
“Never in the modern history of mankind has the struggle against racial hatred been more urgent. For the Jewish people Europe today is a no-man's land.
In all the Nazi-invaded countries the plight of the Jews defies all description. The communal and social institutions that the Jewish workers have built throughout the years have been ruthlessly destroyed and Jewish men, women and children are drenched in their own blood.
Robbed of their property, humiliated and enslaved in ghettoes [sic], the Jews in Europe today are at the mercy of Nazi hoodlums. Everywhere hunted, everywhere tortured, the Jewish people are driven into exile from one country and denied admittance into the other.
From the first day of its existence, the Jewish Labor Committee participated in every action that tended to relieve the plight and allay the suffering of our brothers across the sea” (Adolph Held, page 1, 1st essay).
“The Jewish Labor Committee (JLC), founded in New York in 1934, was the vanguard of American labor's anti-Nazi and antifascist activism….In 1940–1941, it achieved the rescue of hundreds of European labor and social-democratic party leaders trapped in France by the invading German army or in Lithuania by the Soviet army.
Among these persons were some of the foremost leaders of the Labour and Socialist International and of the International Federation of Trade Unions. Many others were Polish Bundists, the JLC's founders' original political family, doubly exposed to Nazi brutality by their Jewish identity and social-democratic positions.This event is the focal point from which American labor's international solidarity for the labor victims of Nazism and fascism can be observed. In addition, the connection between the JLC and the Emergency Rescue Committee whose agent, Varian Fry, rescued artists and intellectuals, is also” clear. (International Labor and Working-Class History Society, 2005. For more on the JLC’s work rescuing European labor leaders, see Collomp C. The Jewish Labor Committee, American Labor, and the Rescue of European Socialists, 1934–1941. International Labor and Working-Class History. 2005;68:112-133. Online at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0147547905000220).
Founded in 1934, the Jewish Labor Committee (JLC) originated in an effort to link the forces of Jewish unions and other labor and Jewish fraternal organizations in the fight against the Nazis and fascism.
Baruch Charney Vladeck, general manager of the Jewish Daily Forward, organized the founding meeting of the JLC on February 25, 1934 in New York City.
Efforts to aid Jews and other victims of Nazi domination, as well as to publicize their plight, were the chief activities of the JLC in its early years. To this end, the JLC joined with the American Jewish Congress to organize a boycott of Nazi goods. During the 1930s the JLC made every effort to aid victims of Nazism in Europe, through collections of money, food and clothing drives, and other forms of assistance to refugees and exiles.
Following the Allied victory, the JLC contributed to the rehabilitation of war-torn Europe by creating schools, clinics and homes for destitute children, and by providing services for Holocaust survivors in displaced persons camps.
The JLC's aim to "impress upon the Jewish masses that they must fight hand in hand with the general forces of democracy" remained the guiding principle of the JLC after the War. During the decades following the War, the JLC worked toward ensuring democratic rights for workers and minorities in the United States. (Tamiment Institute)
SUBJECT(S): Working class Jews -- United States. Jewish refugees -- United States. Antisemitism. -- Political activity -- Juifs de la classe ouvrie`re -- E´tats-Unis. Re´fugie´s juifs -- Antise´mitisme. -- Activite´ politique. OCLC: 79005967. OCLC lists only 3 copies worldwide (Harvard, Intl Inst Social Hist, Bibliothek Des Ruhrgebiets), only 1 of them in the Western Hemisphere and none in New York. Date penned on margin of page 1, vertical fold (as issued), Very Good Condition. Scarce and important. (Holo2-162-21-XX-’+).
Price: $250.00