Filmshow: The Jewish Anarchists, Brighton, 21st June, 7.30pm, The Cowley Club

I'd hugely recommend anybody near Brighton to make the journey to see this. Really amazing film. I'd go watch it again if only I lived close by.
Also good to see the Cowley Club doing something a bit more class focussed, even if it is just a film about class struggle anarchists.

just what on earth is this 'jewish anarchist' meant to be?

you are either an anarchist or not

ethnocentric religious fascism is mutually exclusive to the concept of anarchism

and pretty much to any progressive humanist movement too

I did not think Kropotkin was that stupid a bigot. I knew Jewish Anarchists in London, they were pretty anti religious. They were not ashamed of their race. I knew one Jew who was ashamed of the means his Nation used to obtain clear title to their Land. Until I pointed out that something very similar had been done by all Nations - though most covered it up.

The Anarchists organising Jewish support for the London Dockers in a big strike certainly sent a Rabbi in full fig to assure the Dockers that the Bread they had refused was good honest Jewish baked bread baked for free with money Jewish workers had collected to support the Dockers. Then what had been refused under suspicion of a bosses plot to poison the strikers and bring in scabs was accepted, and years later brought Docker support at the Battle of Cable Street.

We do not need ignorant foreign Anarchists misleading people about the nature of Nations or Religions.

Previous poster says:

'just what on earth is this 'jewish anarchist' meant to be?'

Well that is what the film is about so come and see before judging maybe? If not local to Brighton you can watch the documentary on youtube!

'ethnocentric religious fascism is mutually exclusive to the concept of anarchism'

Well yes but I am mystified to know why you think the film might be about ''ethnocentric religious fascism", given that the film blurb says nothing of the sort.

The Jewish anarchist counter culture the film is about was anti-religious, anti-statist and anti fascist. In America the late 19th century onwards saw a proliferation of anarchist ideas and groups among the most impoverished immigrant communities. These communities worked with each other but published their own journals in their own languages. There were USA published anarchist newspapers in German, Italian, Spanish and of course centred in this film yiddish - the journal Freie Arbeiter Stimme (which published for 87 years until the late 1970s).

The film is taken from the AK Press (USA) DVD Anarchism in America and is made by Paul Avrich.

Here is a relevant bit from the wikipedia entry on Jewish anarchism (which as a rather basic bit of research the poster in question could have found in about five seconds!):

"Jewish anarchism is a general term encompassing various expressions of anarchism within the Jewish community.

Many people of Jewish origin, such as Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Martin Buber, Murray Bookchin, Noam Chomsky, Murray Rothbard or David D. Friedman have played a role in the history of anarchism. However, as well as these individual anarchists of Jewish origin, there have also been specifically Jewish anarchist movements, within the Yiddish-speaking communities of Eastern and Central Europe, and the Western cities to which they migrated, from the late nineteenth century until the Second World War. All the members of the first anarchist group in the Russian Empire, which was formed in 1903 in Białystok, were Jews[1]. Yiddish-speaking Jews participated to the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam in 1907.
Fraye Arbeter Shtime, vol 1 no 4, Friday, July 25, 1890.

Jewish anarchist movements tended to stress the internationalist character of the movement, but many of them also supported their national culture and focused on specifically Jewish issues. Yiddish anarchist literature flourished since 1880s till 1950s and, on much smaller scale, till 1980s; the last Yiddish periodical publication, Problemen was published in 1991. In addition to many original books, pamphlets, poems and essays, all the major works of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, Errico Malatesta, Henry Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, Max Stirner and other anarchists were translated into Yiddish. Rudolf Rocker, a non-Jewish German anarchist, had studied Yiddish and authored many Yiddish books, pamphlets and articles. Most Jewish anarchists were anarcho-syndicalists, while a few others were individualist anarchists."

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_anarchism

s'funny how easy the concept of race is abused by those who should know better

biology, anthropology, ethnology and genetics show without doubt that not only is race an utterly bankrupt concept, but that the imagined (some might say longed for) genetic 'purity' of jewish nationalism and collective (fascistic?) politics is a fairy tale

what's more funny[not] is the ease with which statements like:

"All the members of the first anarchist group in the Russian Empire, which was formed in 1903 in Białystok, were Jews"

can be made without fuss or blushes, whereas when one points out the facts with regards to the ethnic origins of the bolsheviks that destroyed the anarchist movement in the east (and 100 million other people), well you know the rest.

and if it's bread your interested in, try reading or looking up kropotkins 'the conquest of bread' - something every self respecting anarchist should (in my opinion)

anyhows, good luck to yous, I will make the effort to finish watching this film, even if I am suspicious of the spurious sub-classification of humans that is represented by the bizarre and counter-intuitive appellation of 'jewish' anarchist (cause we all know that jewishness is really only an imposed religious outlook and cannot betaken seriously by any interested in a free human world - whatever you might feel about not 'offending' jewish sensibilities in this hysterical pc climate)

as for:

"ashamed of the means his Nation used to obtain clear title to their Land"

it aint his nation just because he is jewish (even if he actually lived there - which you seem to indicate he doesn't/didn't), israel has not obtained clear title and it aint their land

lets be clear

Is prince pete Kropotkin?

According to a good book my friend read in a school class, clear title to the land was achieved by genocide. The extirpation of the Nation that lived there. That was thousands of years ago. That idea was expressed by my friend before the State of Israel was founded. Jews can be a genetic Jew, or a convert to that religion, as well as being both genetic and religiously a Jew. Many of the best Anarchists were the product of religious jewish upbringng. The ones I knew had great integrity from that source.


"when one points out the facts with regards to the ethnic origins of the bolsheviks that destroyed the anarchist movement in the east (and 100 million other people), well you know the rest". What 100 million? . The logic of what you say is not clear. I know that Stalin decimated the population in the Makhnovist seedbed. Their food bought the factories and machines that built the T34s that won the battle of Kursk to turn WW2 against Hitler. The millions dead of starvation in early 1930s were the shock troops in that battle.

I bought "The Conquest of Bread" in a boot sale,from a man I has given it to forty years previously.

But you seem quite sound about the Politically correct. They turn themselves into liars.

Would we have had ridiculous comments like the above if the film was about the pre WW1 French or German anarchist movements? Or Italian immigrant anarchists in the US, or Argentina? I'm guessing not. So why make a fuss about it because it's Jewish anarchists then?

the concept of a 'genetic jew' is just another way of discribing the mind rape of children