'East End Jewish Radicals 1875-1914'

Thanks folks. I guess there's only one way to find out -:) I'll add it to my holiday wish list and see what happens.

BTW, rkn, what sort of articles were you thinking about? I'm not volenteering, perhaps someone can scan parts of the book and post it. I know, sounds alot more simple than it probably is. I useless on the technical front.

Anyway, if there's someone out there who's read both books, I'd be curious to hear if there are differences. My guess might be in the introduction, but ...

I think Martin's probably right about Bill Fishman's politics. But as a history, I thought the book was pretty good. It at least gives the reader some sense of the times and the activities of the East End comrades. As does Rocker's London Years.

Of course the book has its short comings in the sense that it wasn't written by an anarchist. How East End anarchism drew down is probably still to be written in any detail. I suspect that East End anarchism's demise was very similiar to the demise of anarchism as a major working class movement in many countries by the 1920s.

I thought Melter's (in his autobiography) take was a bit much, but who knows, maybe some relevancy.

The one thing that I didn't get a sense of from either The London Years or East End Radicals (well, the Jewish Radicals version which I have) is how the unions organized along libertarian lines. I got no real sense of the day-to-day, nitty gritty organizing that created anarchist unionism. Or, as with the New York situation, did they organize trade unions, radical, but not necessarily anarchist in structure and form.

Perhaps this is an area for further research.

I was hoping to do my own reviews of The London Years, East End Jewish Radicals & The East End Years: A Stepney Childhood, unfortunately I haven't found the time.

Let me recommend all three of these books. I found them to be overlapping and complementary. They are very informative and useful sources for those curious about the London "Jewish movement". While it can surely be said the Fishman book focuses in on the "Jewish movement", Rudolf Rocker's book, while ceneterd on his years in the Jewish libertarian workers' movement, is much more than that. I found Rocker's recollections of Malatesta, Louise Michael and others to be wonderful. Fermin Rocker's book is also insightful as he recalls anarchist personalities of the era. Fermain remembers the "Jimmy Higgins" (the people who do all the work and get little public recognition---you know, the "shitworkers")of the movement. And his love for his father is as clear a cloudless day.

In solidarity,
mitch

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Review From: Organise #64, Published by the Anarchist Federation
(Britain) http://www.af-north.org/organise/organise.htm

The London Years by
Rudolf Rocker
AK Press/Five Leaves (http://www.akpress.org/)
228 pages

This book, long out of print, has made a
welcome return, and is published at the
same time as another reprint, Bill Fishman's
East London Jewish Radicals. It was written
by Rudolf Rocker, a gentile German who
became involved in the Yiddish-speaking
anarchist movement of Britain. Not only did
Rocker animate the highly popular
newspaper Der Arbeter Fraint, he was also
involved in setting up the monthly Germinal
which dealt with anarchist theory and
culture "to acquaint its readers with all
libertarian tendencies in modern literature
and contemporary thought". Interned during
the First World War he spent the rest of his
life in Holland, Germany and the USA. The
thriving movement that he had helped build
(in London, but also in Leeds, Manchester
and other northern towns) was devastated
by the war, by the number of anarchists
returning to Russia to assist in the
Revolution, many perishing there, and by the
upsurge of the Communist Party. But for
several decades there was a vibrant
anarchist movement among the Jewish
working class in Britain.
Here is described the strike that broke out
among the tailoring workers of the West End
in 1912, with over 8,000 attending a
meeting addressed by Rocker and others.
Following this successful strike, many
Jewish families took in the children of
London dockers who were also on strike.
This was one of the great triumphs of
Rocker and the Jewish anarchist movement.
This active solidarity broke down the
barriers between the dockers,
predominantly of Irish Catholic background,
and the Yiddish speaking working class of
the East End. It was a hammer-blow against
anti-semitism. As Colin Ward says in the
introduction: "Rudolf Rocker's own story,
that of an immigrant, deprived of citizenship
in his country of origin, and deported from
Britain after years of internment, has its own
message for another generation struggling
with the dilemmas of a multi-cultural
Britain".

East End Jewish Radicals 1875-1914 by William J Fishman http://www.akpress.org/2004/items/eastendjewishradicals

The East End Years: A Stepney Childhood, Fermin Rocker, Freedom Press
http://www.akpress.org/1998/items/eastendyears
Purchase from: http://www.akpress.org/

"East End Jewish Radicals 1875-1914", William Fishman and Rocker's "London Years" are pretty good starters. But I found the accounts to be limited in the sense of being more trade unionist than anything else. Fascinating never-the-less.

See also http://libcom.org/history/wess-woolf

One thing that often gets lost (on this side of the Atlantic) are the efforts by the Jewish garment workers and the non-Jewish dockers at building unity during their respective 1912 strikes. Rocker's account is quite moving.