Magdalena Berger is an editor at Jacobin’s German-language edition.
Since 2021, the Communist Party’s Elke Kahr has been mayor of Austria’s second-largest city, Graz. In local elections June 28, voters passed a positive verdict on her five years in power, giving the Communists an even stronger majority.
With his pro-worker reforms and pacifist foreign policy, Bruno Kreisky was Austria’s greatest chancellor. His successes weren’t just a product of his own talent but of the powerful labor movement that shaped him.
Horrific, genocidal atrocities are being carried out against Palestinians in Gaza right now. But Israeli historian Ilan Pappé explains that Palestinian Israelis also find themselves in an “apartheid state” inside Israel.
Last year, Germany’s Foreign Office spelled out guidelines for a “feminist” foreign policy, focused on defending marginalized women. Today in Gaza, this same ministry is arming the deadliest war on women and girls this century.
Austria’s Communist Party hasn’t had an MP since 1959. But after years showing its worth in bread-and-butter local campaigns, the party has a realistic chance of a breakthrough in Sunday’s general election.
Nine months into the war on Gaza, Israeli media hardly reports on the death and destruction there. Haggai Matar, executive director of +972 magazine, tells Jacobin about the self-censorship that dominates Israeli journalism.
After two years heading Graz city hall, Communist Elke Kahr was recently named the world’s best mayor. Now, her Communist Party is hoping to win power in Salzburg and show that Austria isn’t doomed to turn to the far right.