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The Jewish Labor Committee, an independent secular organization, has represented the organized Jewish community on questions relating to trade unionism and human rights since 1934, when it was founded as a labor-based operation in response to the rise of Nazism in Europe. Today, the JLC works to maintain and strengthen the historically strong relationship between the American Jewish community and the trade union movement, and to promote the shared social justice agenda of both communities. Secular Jewish culture embraces several related phenomena; above all, it is the culture of secular communities of Jewish people, but it can also include the cultural contributions of individuals who identify as secular Jews, or even those of religious Jews working in cultural areas not generally considered to be connected...
The JLC's headquarters are in New York City. It has staffed local/regional offices in Boston, MA; New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA; Chicago, IL; Detroit, MI; Los Angeles -- and volunteer-led JLC or JLC-affiliated groups in such places as Washington, DC; Cleveland, OH; Miami, FL; Phoenix, AZ; Las Vegas, NV, San Francisco, CA; and Seattle, WA.
The JLC was formed in February, 1934, by Yiddish-speaking immigrant trade union leaders, and leaders of such groups as the Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring, the Jewish Labor Bund, and the United Hebrew Trades, in response to the rise of Nazism in Germany. Representatives assembled at a conference on New York's Lower East Side, charging it with the following tasks: Yiddish (Yid. ...
The Workmens Circle Logo The Arbeter Ring (ï¬®×¨×‘×¢×˜×¢×¨Ö¾×¨×™× ×’) (Workmen’s Circle) is a Yiddish language-oriented American Jewish fraternal organization loosely connected to the Humanistic Judaism movement. ...
A Bundist demonstration, 1917 The General Jewish Labour Union of Lithuania, Poland and Russia, in Yiddish the Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeter Bund in Lite, Poyln un Rusland (×Ö·×œ×’×ž×²Ö·× ×¢×¨ ײדישער ×Ö·×¨×‘×²×˜×¢×¨×¡×‘×•× ×“ ×ין ליט×Ö·, פוילין ×ון רוסל×Ö·× ×“), generally called The Bund (×‘×•× ×“) or the Jewish Labor Bund, was a Jewish political party operating in several European countries between the 1890s and the...
The corner of Orchard and Rivington Streets, Lower East Side (2005) The Lower East Side is a neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. ...
(1) support of Jewish labor institutions in European countries; (2) assistance to the anti-Hitler underground movement; (3) aid to the victims of Nazism; (4) cooperation with American organized labor in fighting anti-democratic forces; and (5) combating anti-Semitism and other evil effects of Fascism and Nazism upon American life. During the first five years of its existence, the Jewish Labor Committee concentrated mainly on supporting anti-Nazi labor forces in Europe and sending relief to Jewish labor institutions there, especially those maintained by the Jewish Labor and the "left" Labor Zionist movement (the "right" Labor Zionists organized their own relief and rehabilitation committee), and encouraging and strengthing U.S. and Canadian opposition to the Nazis, in the labor and democratic left, as well as in the community-at-large. At the same time it organized mass anti-Nazi demonstrations; in 1936, with the American Jewish Congress, through the Joint Boycott Council, it conducted a boycott on German goods and services. Labor Zionism (or Labour Zionism) is the traditional left-wing of the Zionist ideology. ...
The American Jewish Congress is a civil rights body formed both to protect the civil rights of Jewish Americans, as well as to act as a conduit for pro-civil rights activities in the American Jewish community. ...
After the outbreak of World War II, the emphasis focused on efforts to save Jewish cultural and political figures, as well as Jewish and non-Jewish labor and socialist leaders facing certain death at the hands of the Nazis. With powerful help from the American Federation of Labor, the Committee succeeded in bringing over a thousand of such individuals to the United States, or to temporary shelter elsewhere. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. ...
Beginning in the late 1930s, the Committee became increasingly concerned with Jewish defense work and community relations in the United States. It was one of the four founders of the short-lived General Jewish Council and helped organize the National Community Relations Advisory Council [re-named the Jewish Council for Public Affairs in the 1990s], of which it is still an active member.
Unlike other community relations agencies, the JLC has its sphere of action clearly delineated: it strives to represent Jewish interests in the American labor movement, and labor interests in the Jewish community. Working with the [[AFL-CIO|American Federation of Labor—Congress of Industrial Organizations] since the AFL-CIO's formation in 1956, and the Change to Win federation since the CtW's formation in 2005, the JLC works with and has the support of a wide range of unions and their associated organizations, locally as well as nationally. Comprising diverse organizations and a variety of ideological groups, the Committee has been guided in its work by pragmatic policies rather than by a clear Jewish philosophy. While Bundist influence was significant in the organization, particularly in the early period, and the Jewish Labor Bund is still an affiliated organization, JLC been supportive of the State of Israel since 1948. [Both Ameinu (formerly the Labor Zionist Alliance) and Meretz USA are affiliated with the JLC.] The Change to Win Federation is a coalition of American labor unions originally formed in 2005 as an alternative to the AFL-CIO. The coalition is associated with strong advocacy of the organising model. ...
The JLC is a founding member of a number of Jewish communal agencies, including the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, and the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (abbreviated as COPOMAJO or CPMAJO) is self described as a central address for key American, Israeli and other world leaders to consult on issues of critical concern to the Jewish community. It is often referred to as simply the Presidents Conference...
The vast territories of the Russian Empire once hosted the largest Jewish population in the world. ...
Its funding comes from independent campaigns, contributions from trade unions, allocations from welfare funds, and grants from foundations. Originally a body of organizations and unions, the Committee has also had individual members since the mid-1960s.
References - anon, Jewish Labor Committee in Action (1948); idem, The Time is Now... (1951);
- idem, Finf un Tsvantsik Yor... (1960);
- idem, The Jewish Labor Committee Story (2004);
- Herberg, Will, “The Jewish Labor Movement in the United States,” in American Jewish Year Book, vol. 53 (1952);
- Knox, Israel, “Jewish Labor - The Reality and the Ideal,” in THE JEWISH LABOR MOVEMENT IN AMERICA: TWO VIEWS (New York: Jewish Labor Committee 1958)
- Malmgreen, Gail, “Labor and the Holocaust: The Jewish Labor Committee and the Anti-Nazi Struggle,” in: Labor’s Heritage (October 1991).
External link
Authors - Charles Bezalel Sherman [Field Director of the JLC from 1938-1944),
- appended by Arieh Lebowitz (Program Associate, and also, later, Communications Director of the JLC, from 1987- )
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