Talk:Jewish left

Original contributor
Jayjg, I did not create this article. Why the original contributor chose not to describe organizations on the Jewish left is beyond me. Nonetheless, groups idenitifed as being "the Jewish left" are not the only Jewish groups that have taken "left", or liberal positions. Any article on the Jewish left would have to mention this important distinction: Jewish groups often take liberal positions on many issues, but being liberal often is not the same being very liberal in a determined political sense. Michael Lerner's Tikkun community is one example of the Jewish Left; while the CCAR and RA are not. It is the job of an encyclopedia to explain and clarify such things. RK 23:42, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)


 * I understand that you did not create it, but the article is about the Jewish left. If it described a number of groups on the Jewish left, and then went on to briefly say that certain other Jewish groups often take liberal positions, but are not considered part of the Jewish left, that would be fine, but having an article on the Jewish Left almost solely focus on groups which are not part of the Jewish Left makes no sense. Jayjg 02:54, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't entirely understand the need for this article. The very existance of it seems to imply that most Jews are on the right of the political spectrum, which is far from accurate. If one would want to make a comprehensive list of (non-Israeli) Jews who are on the left, one would be busy for quite a while. Even when noting celebrities, one would have to keep in mind practically all the Jewish people in the US entertainment business (eg. Woody Allen, Natalie Portman, Jerry Seinfeld, Jeff Goldblum, etc.) --Alan Phoenix 13:52, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I have added lots of material to this page. It still needs more work - e.g. citations. I hope other editors will build on what I've added - feel free to rip it apart! BobFromBrockley 18:12, 15 May 2007 (UTC) Some things that maybe should be added: Ameinu, Hashomer Hatzair, Jewish Currents, International Workers OrderBobFromBrockley 11:13, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Non-Zionist Jewish nationalism
Article currently says: "There were non-Zionist left-wing forms of Jewish nationalism, such as territorialism (which called for a Jewish national homeland, but not necessarily in Palestine), autonomism (which called for non-territorial national rights for Jews in multinational empires) and the folkism, advocated by Simon Dubnow, (which celebrated the Jewish culture of the Yiddish-speaking masses)." An anonymous editor inserted a comment to the effect that it is not clear if "the latter" (folkism?) should be considered part of the Jewish left. What do other editors think? BobFromBrockley 10:53, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Walther Rathenau definitely wasn`t a "leading figure in the Jewish Left". He was, at best, a centrist (Big-L) liberal. Marxist philosopher Georg Lukacs even claimed he had detected proto-fascist tendencies in some of Rathenau`s political writings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.168.238.50 (talk) 12:36, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Traditional religious values section
This section has some major problems. First, it to be clear that these are not necessarily the interpretations that all or even most leading religious figures would place on these sources. As it stands now, the article implies that it is universaly accepted that the concept of the jubilee year implies a divine mandate to redistribution of wealth. Such interpretations do exist, but they are certainly not universal, and quite possibly minority. Similarly, more examples are needed in place of a broad assertion that numerous such sources exist (and these will need to be properly qualified and sourced). Also, I was not aware that hospitality to strangers is a uniquely left-wing value. If the article means to imply charity to be a feature of the left, this too will have to be justified as a uniquely leftist value. I have more than half a mind to erase the whole section and replace it with some vague statement to the effect that the jewish left claims sources in traditional texts, etc. Thoughts? -NeverWorker (talk) 05:39, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Relations with the Palestinian left
There ought to be additional information on how the Jewish left interacts with other ethnic left-wing movements, especially with the Arab and Palestinian left. Many Palestinian leftists are apparently unhappy that their fellow Jewish leftists are often relunctant to criticize the state of Israel and to call for the creation of a Palestinian State. They feel that the Jewish left merely advances the cause of Zionist imperialism and that it has no solutions to offer for economically and politically oppressed social and ethnic minorities around the world. ADM (talk) 10:27, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Jewish left figures in the Arab World
Nothing (yet) over the Jewish left activists in the Arab World, e.g. the Egyptians Henri Curiel, Hillel Schwartz and Marcel Israël, and the Moroccans Abraham Serfaty and Sion Assidon (founding Secretary General and now member of the National council of Transparency Maroc and since 2005 member of the board of directors of Transparency International). --Pylambert (talk) 21:59, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I forgot to mention Georges Adda (1916-2008), Jewish leader of the Tunisian Communist Party. --Pylambert (talk) 18:42, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Where are the Yippies?
The Yippie movement was started by left-wing Jews, including Abbie Hoffman, Anita Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Nancy Kurshan, and Paul Krassner. No mention of them at all in this article seems to be an oversight. Of course it wasn't a Jewish only organization, but the co-founders followed the liberal jewish philosophy of confronting the powerful in an especially humorous fashion. How can they be left out? 173.16.88.96 (talk) 18:06, 22 October 2009 (UTC)Skip Stone

Horrible pre-packaged sidebars
This article presents the classic example of why cookie-cutter sidebar portals and footers are worse than useless. Instead of useful and interesting graphics, one after another after another after another of the cardboard portals is jammed onto this article. It needs surgery!!! Carrite (talk) 19:13, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. I think the Jewish one should stay and the socialism and politics ones should go. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:25, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Neoconservatism
Should neoconservatism not be mentioned? It is quite popular with Jewish intellectuals (one reason might be that it is pro-Israel), and it shares a lot (tends to be almost identical) with the liberal intervenationalists mentioned in the article. Duckelf (talk) 15:42, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Israeli left
Amnon Rubinstein is not "left". He is a centrist libral-democrat. The hebrew wikipedia site says he supported Etzel when he was young. He may be perceived as being on the left because he was mainly active politically in the Begin & Shamir years when the whole system leaned strongly to the right. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.118.35.248 (talk) 15:59, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Edits by "Steady diet"
Steady diet made a series of POV changes that I'm trying to correct, even though Shabazz thinks I'm the one pushing a POV agenda, for some strange reason (he didn't explain his reverts so far). Therefore, I'll explain my edits:


 * 1) Anybody doubts that the term support is more neutral than "solidarity", specially when it comes to a controversial conflict?
 * 2) Since when the Anti-Defamation League is "right-wing Zionist"? No source is provided to assert that those Jewish organizations are "right-wing".
 * 3) The alleged "Jewish support" for the Trump administration and affiliated white nationalists needs to be attributed since it's not an indisputable fact, but a problematic claim made by those left-wing organizations, that's why I added quotation marks.
 * 4) I provided several sources to show that most of those South African activists were affiliated to Communist organizations, some of them were their leaders, so I don't understand what's the objection.--Satameas (talk) 19:36, 26 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your comments. Here are my responses. You'll have to forgive my brevity, but I'm working on my smartphone.
 * 1) "Support" is more neutral. I'll leave it.
 * 2) Your edit to the sentence about right-wing Jewish groups makes nonsense of it, and it slanders the Jews who oppose those right-wing Jewish organizations. Are you seriously asserting that the new Jewish groups formed because they oppose AIPAC's "support for Israel"? There's a term for that -- POV pushing.
 * 4) The left-wing Jewish Rivonia defendants were also all men, and I can cite multiple sources that say so. The key question is whether it's relevant, and you need to demonstrate that it's not just well-poisoning.
 * Thank you. — MShabazz Talk/Stalk 20:05, 26 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I'll remove "right-wing" and "support for Israel" since both of them are unsourced. I'll leave simply "political position", which is neutral, because saying that groups like ADL are "right-wing Zionists" is ridiculous. You didn't respond my third point, which explains the need to attribute the alleged Jewish support for Trump and "white nationalists" (as if there were a single Jewish group in the world that supported white nationalism).--Satameas (talk) 20:36, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
 * When an editor adds "anti-Zionist" in an article, it can only be pov-ed.
 * I add that according to ARBPIA3, you cannot edit this article. Pluto2012 (talk) 09:08, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Article claims to be about the Jewish left but does not mention the name of KARL MARX
Karl Marx was jew. Why does his name not appear in this article? Hard to believe this is some kind of innocent oversight.

"Childhood and early education: 1818–1836 Marx was born on 5 May 1818 to Heinrich Marx (1777–1838) and Henriette Pressburg (1788–1863). He was born at Brückengasse 664 in Trier, a town then part of the Kingdom of Prussia's Province of the Lower Rhine.[18] Marx was ethnically Jewish. His maternal grandfather was a Dutch rabbi, while his paternal line had supplied Trier's rabbis since 1723, a role taken by his grandfather Meier Halevi Marx.[19]" GoldenFroggy (talk) 20:15, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx


 * For some reason, you misquoted the article about Marx, which goes on to say:
 * Prior to his son's birth, and after the abrogation of Jewish emancipation in the Rhineland,[20] Herschel converted from Judaism to join the state Evangelical Church of Prussia, taking on the German forename of Heinrich over the Yiddish Herschel.[21] ... Largely non-religious, Heinrich was a man of the Enlightenment, interested in the ideas of the philosophers Immanuel Kant and Voltaire.
 * Karl Marx was born to a non-religious father who had converted from Judaism. Karl never asserted a Jewish identity and had no known association with the Jewish community. So why should he be prominent in an article about the Jewish left? Because his grandfathers were rabbis? You're going to have to do better than that. — MShabazz Talk/Stalk 18:32, 5 May 2018 (UTC)


 * The term refers to Jewish groups that are part of the left, often with their own Yiddish publications, which would not describe Marx. TFD (talk) 00:23, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Worldwide
The article as it stands is heavily focused on Ashkenazi Jews in Central and Eastern Europe, and this does not represent the reality of the history of the Jewish left. For example, an article today from AJS Perspectives says in an almost throwaway comment:
 * In places like Salonica, home to the largest Judeo-Spanish-speaking community, Jewish socialists promoted Judeo-Spanish as the language of the Jewish proletariat and designated it as the official language of social and economic discourse for the Socialist Workers' Federation.

Additionally, Naeim Giladi argues in "The Jews of Iraq" that:
 * In many countries, including the United States and Iraq, Jews represented a large part of the Communist party. In Iraq, hundreds of Jews of the working intelligentsia occupied key positions in the hierarchy of the Communist and Socialist parties.

And there was also, for example, Henri Alleg, a Sephardic Jewish communist leader in Algeria. These are just a few things I've come across without even trying to research this question, which all seem to counter the narrative of Jewish leftism being primarily a Central/Eastern European phenomenon. פֿינצטערניש (Fintsternish), she/her (talk) 13:46, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

"Jewish Maoism" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the redirect Jewish Maoism should be deleted, kept, or retargeted. It will be discussed at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 March 23 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines. BDD (talk) 21:15, 23 March 2020 (UTC)