David Rosenberg is a writer, educator, and tour guide of London’s radical history. He has been active in the Jewish Socialists’ Group since 1976. He is the author of Battle for the East End and Rebel Footprints: A Guide to Uncovering London’s Radical History.
Ninety years ago this Sunday, antifascist demonstrators routed Oswald Mosley and his supporters when they tried to terrorize the Jews of London’s East End. It’s an important anniversary in a year when a new far-right movement is gathering strength.
In tsarist Russia and interwar Poland, the Jewish Bund developed a socialist alternative to Zionism while fighting against antisemitic oppression. The neglected international history of their movement is a vital resource for our own time.
Marek Edelman was a leader of the heroic Warsaw Ghetto uprising against Nazi genocide. After 1945, Edelman stayed on in Poland as a champion of democratic socialism who played a courageous role in the country’s dissident movement.