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Welcome to our website ____________________________________________________________________ An inspiring day Toynbee Hall was crammed with a 100 people but you could have heard a pin drop as they listened with rapt attention to an array of speakers recalling histories of struggle in London’s East End and linking these histories to politics today, at the JSG days-school Rising From the East - A day to explore communities, culture and politics in London's East End on Sunday 15th November 2009. Using powerful images to illustrate their talks, the speakers enabled discussions to flow from jailed Poplar councillors in the 1920s fighting for better lives for working class people to the 400-year history of British exploitation in Bengal to self-organisation of immigrant Jews through the Workers Circle. Added to this were recollections of an eclectic list of politically engaged East End health workers from Elizabethan times to the present, the role of Jewish anarchists in fighting for workers’ rights and solidarity and against their communal leadership, and the shifting political faultlines during the last 50 years within the Bengali community – the East End’s largest minority today. At the heart of the discussions were the concepts of politics, culture and community - how they have been fought over, and how they have been utilised to strengthen people and movements of the East End in asserting their rights against those with power. Each of the six talks/presentations provoked sharp questions and discussion points taking forward the ideas presented and asserting their relevance to struggles today. Many communities and generations were represented in the audience and they described the day as ‘excellent’, ‘a great event’ and ‘inspiring’.
A true mensch Obituary by David Rosenberg "To be a Jew means always being with the oppressed The author of these words was the Bundist Marek Edelman who has just died aged 90. He was one of the commanders of the ZOB – the Jewish Fighting Organisation that led the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943.
To anti-fascists and human rights activists around the world he was a hero – plain and simple. He wrote one of the earliest Holocaust memoirs, The Ghetto Fights, which was published in Poland in 1945 and subsequently translated into several languages. It is an incredible text which pains and inspires the reader in equal measure. After escaping the burnt-out ghetto through the sewers he continued underground anti-Nazi activity and then joined other Poles in the Warsaw Rising of 1944. After the war he saved countless more lives working as a cardiologist. In recent years he used the medical arena to make contact with Dr Mustafa Barghouti, director of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees. Edelman was never a Zionist, and he opposed Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian territory. He met with Palestinian political figures and expressed support for their struggle against occupation while at the same time urging them to firmly reject terroristic methods. He angered Israeli leaders by pointedly addressing the Palestinians he made contact with as “leaders of the Palestinian Fighting Organisations”. In Tel Aviv they were indignant that such a prominent figure in the Warsaw Ghetto resistance would choose to continue to live in Poland (his homeland!) after the war – a place they regarded simply as a Jewish graveyard. Even worse, he had the chutzpah not to take his political lead from less heroic and far more reactionary Zionist spokespersons and cheerleaders. Not that Edelman was worried. This hero of the Jewish people and of anti-fascists had long been treated as persona non grata by the Israeli political establishment and its mainstream media. Edelman would not countenance Israel’s attempt to appropriate Holocaust resistance to justify its political actions, and he said so on several occasions. He refused to allow the historical experience of the Ghetto fighters to be claimed by any group/nation exclusively. On the contrary, he argued that this history belonged to everyone and carried a universal imperative to fight for equality, democracy, human rights and dignity wherever these were threatened or suppressed He continued to repudiate the Zionist narrative of Jewish history with its blinkered ultra-nationalism. Instead he remained loyal to the Bund’s socialist political tradition which, as its 1938 manifesto had declared, rejected “one’s own and foreign nationalism”. Throughout his life Edelman worked for human rights, democracy and egalitarianism. He remained sceptical of nationalism in general and critical of state power. He was a brave and forthright opponent of the Stalinist regime in Poland and, in the 1980s, actively supported the Workers Opposition Movement – KOR. In 1988 – on the 45th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising – he snubbed the official commemoration in Poland attended by Stalinist dignitaries from Poland and Zionist dignitaries from Israel, in favour of an alternative ceremony at the Warsaw Jewish cemetery, attended by 3,000 people, where he unveiled a monument to Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter – Bundist leaders of the 1930s who had been captured and murdered on Stalin’s orders during the War. I treasure the fact that I had the good fortune to hear Marek Edelman speak and briefly meet him in 1997 at a conference in Warsaw marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Bund. Naturally a lot of people wanted to speak to him. He sat, relaxed, making time for everybody. He was a hero, a fighter and a true mensch. Koved zayn ondenk (honour his memory) Jewish Socialist Issue 58 is out now! JSG events Sunday 15th November Other events Questioning Question Time Join the discussion with a panel of speakers challenging the BBC's decision to invite Nazi BNP leader Nick Giffin on to BBC's Question Time programme this week. We will also be discussing plans for the protest the following day outside BBC Wood Lane. Speakers Peter Hain MP, Michael Rosen, Hugh Lanning PCS, Sabby Dhalu UAF, Ken Livingstone, Kawsar Zaman MCB, Weyman Bennett UAF, Jon McClure Reverend & the Makers, Gillian Walnes The Anne Frank Trust UK, Martin Smith LMHR Supported by BECTU, SERTUC, Anne Frank Trust, PCS, Unite the union, CWU, TSSA, Musicians Union, ASLEF and Love Music Hate Racism. Keep the Nazi BNP off Question Time Speakers include Mark Serwotka, PCS General Secretary; Gerry Morrissey, BECTU General Secretary; Jeremy Dear, NUJ General Secretary; CWU representative; Tony Kearns CWU Senior Deputy. General Secretary; The Anne Frank Trust UK representative; Sabby Dhalu, UAF Joint Secretary; Weyman Bennett, UAF Joint Secretary; Mpho and DJ Rugrat LMHR artists and more. Followed by a gig hosted by Love Music Hate Racism featuring live music and an Alternative Question Time at Ginglik, 1 Shepherds Bush Green, London W12. Artists include South London singer Mpho and DJ Rugrat. Doors open at 7.30pm starts 8pm. Entry £6/£3. Send a message of hope Demonstration NEW PUBLICATION
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