Gut Feelers and Blind Believers: A Comparative Analysis of Jewish Involvement in the Communist Party in New York City and London, 1935-1945 Jacqueline Karp Senior Thesis Seminar Professor Matthew Vaz 19 April 2017 Karp 1 Table of Contents Introduction 3 Historiography 5 Chapter 1: A Tale of Two Shtetls: The Development of Jewish Communist Communities in London and New York City 12 Chapter 2: The Vanguard of the Working Classes: The Communist Party and Jewish Socioeconomic Conditions in London and New York City 18 Chapter 3: Fighting Fascists: The Communist Response to the Rise of Fascism and Anti-Semitism in London and New York City 30 Chapter 4: Weaving a Political Culture: The Creation of a Jewish Communist Culture in New York City and London 50 Conclusion 64 Bibliography 67 Karp 2 Acknowledgements The research and writing of this thesis has been supported by the immeasurable kindness of many individuals. The first and largest thank you goes to Professor Matthew Vaz, whose kindness and patience knows no bounds. His guidance and support through countless meetings and drafts, as well as his constant reassurance and encouragement made writing this paper an enjoyable experience. I owe a great deal of gratitude to the Global Innovation Fund for funding my trip to archives in London, Manchester, Salford, and Sheffield this past summer. I want to thank Professor Susan Pederson, Professor Charly Coleman, Emily Rutherford and Madeline Woker for their help in guiding my research into a manageable topic, and for the honor of learning from their research expertise at the GIF Conference in Paris. The opportunity to spend weeks in archives examining the papers of Jewish Communists was truly a dream fulfilled. This project would not have been remotely possible without the aid of the Global Innovation Fund and all those involved in it. I would also like to thank the archivists at the Imperial War Museum, the Tamiment Library, the Labour History Archive and Study Center, the Working Class Movement Library, the National Archives and the Marx Memorial Library for taking an interest in my research and volunteering their time and kindness in helping me find materials. Thank you to my parents, of course, for their unending support in every phase of writing this thesis, and for instilling in me a love for history. A special thank you to my Aunt Vetta, and to the rest of my family in London, for offering me a place to stay while I conducted my research in London, and always listening to my excitement and frustration upon returning from archives each day. Thank you as well to my Uncle Lawrence, who gathered books to help me in my research. Finally, thank you to my great-grandparents, the tales of whose own journeys from Eastern Europe to London and New York City a century ago inspired the topic of this paper, and to my Great Uncle Sid, who himself fought in the Battle of Cable Street as a Jewish Communist. Karp 3 Introduction In 1848, Karl Marx published The Communist Manifesto. This work, a blueprint for dismantling the oppressive systems of society subjugating the working to the ruling classes, soon sparked a worldwide ideology and movement known as Marxism. One year after publishing The Communist Manifesto, Marx became the first ethnically Jewish Marxist to move to London. Marx’s Central European origins, period of immigration, and middle class socioeconomic position would put him at odds with the majority of his future adherents, however. When Marx died in 1883, a new wave of Jewish immigrants was just beginning a mass exodus out of Eastern Europe, flooding into the urban centers of the West. As the rise and fall of communism unfolded in the streets of these cities, these poor, immigrant Jews would play an integral role in the development and evolution of the radical left. In the early twentieth century, London and New York City became hubs of both Jewish immigration and Jewish Communism. Between 1935 and 1945, the advent of the Comintern’s Popular Front policy propelled Jewish involvement in the Communist Parties of both cities to new heights. This thesis employs an archival source base of oral histories and interviews, Communist Party publications and documents, and the writings of various Communist Jews and their counterparts, to explore the factors which drew Jews in London and New York City to the Communist Party during this period. Through engaging in a previously unexamined comparative analysis of Jewish Communism in London and New York City, this thesis sheds light on how contextual factors – demographics, socioeconomic conditions, discriminatory politics and social structures – interacted to shape the political culture of each Jewish Communist locale. This thesis is divided into four chapters. Each chapter explores a focal point in the relationship between the Communist Parties of London and New York City and their Jewish Karp 4 populations during the Popular Front years, as well as the similarities and differences in how the Communist Parties responded to the respective needs and concerns of these unique communities. The first chapter accounts for the development and demographics of Jewish communities in London and New York City, as well as the evolution of the Communist Party and its Jewish membership. The second chapter analyses the socioeconomic conditions of Jews in each city, and efforts by the Communist Parties to attract Jews through pursuing social reforms. The third chapter explores the rise of anti-Semitism and fascism, and the quest of both Communist Parties to present themselves as the vanguard of Jews in both cities. The fourth chapter demonstrates how the conditions presented in the previous three chapters interacted to mold the creation of two unique Jewish-Communist political cultures. In the following pages, this thesis demonstrates how Communist Party relationships with Jewish population shifted to fit the immediate needs of local Jewish communities. I argue that the size and socioeconomic conditions of the respective Jewish communities, as well as the threats posed by fascism and anti-Semitism, shaped the political culture characterizing the two Jewish Communist cities. In London, the smaller size of the Jewish community, its working class socioeconomic character, and the imminent threat posed by encroaching fascism and anti- Semitism produced a culture built around resisting fascism and improving standards of living. Across the Atlantic, New York City’s larger Jewish population, its increasing upward mobility, as well as the less palpable threat posed by anti-Semitism and fascism, produced a multifaceted and prospering culture around language, art, intellectual life, politics and the creation of a new American-Jewish identity. The story of Jews and Communism is the story of an immigrant people who moved across the globe and found an ideology espousing precisely their needs, fears and desires. It is a Karp 5 story of hope in new ideas, and steadfast dedication to a community and set of values. Most of all, it is a complex story of nuance and contradiction. The individuals and their movement, described in these pages, joined the Communist Movement for many reasons. As such, a full comparison of the two cities and their Jewish Communist communities requires a more extensive study. By examining those rationales in two distinct locales, London and New York City, I hope to provide insight into the multifaceted relationship between Jews and the Communist Party more broadly. Historiography The comparative analysis of Jewish involvement in the Communist Parties of London and New York City presented here represents a previously unexplored topic. The foundation for this analysis has been established by existing scholarship on broader topics, however. As such, this thesis is set within the intersection of three central fields of scholarship. The first and largest body of work examines the historical relationship between Jews and the left, with a special focus on Communism. Second, a field of study explores the history of Jews within the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), focusing on London. Third, a body of research examines the relationship between Jews and the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), with an emphasis on New York City. The leading scholarship within each of these fields established the essential background for this study. The primary source base in this research stems from archives in England and New York City. These archives provided oral history interviews with Jewish Communists from both New York City and London, the official papers of the CPGB and CPUSA and their Jewish bodies, the individual papers of various Jewish Communist leaders, various Jewish communist newspapers and pamphlets, as well as a range of assorted materials relevant to this research. This study Karp 6 places central emphasis on the topics and events discussed by these primary sources as a means of gaining insight into the factors which led Jews to involvement in the Communist Party, rather than exploring the more general arc of Jewish Communism classically explored in the secondary literature described below. Scholarship on Jews and the left revolves around a central paradox: the oxymoronic notion of “Jewish Communism.” On its most basic terms, Communism divides the world into proletariat and bourgeoisie, structuring its ideology around these identities alone. In seeking to build a unified mass movement, communists advocated the rejection of adherence to any factions, including Jewish national identity. In