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Allan Solomonow Papers Ms Allan Solomonow papers Ms. Coll. 1247 Finding aid prepared by John Anderies. Last updated on April 03, 2020. University of Pennsylvania, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts September 21, 2017 Allan Solomonow papers Table of Contents Summary Information....................................................................................................................................3 Biography/History..........................................................................................................................................4 Scope and Contents....................................................................................................................................... 6 Administrative Information........................................................................................................................... 7 Related Materials........................................................................................................................................... 8 Controlled Access Headings..........................................................................................................................9 Collection Inventory.................................................................................................................................... 11 Series I. Personal and educational materials.........................................................................................11 Series II. Organizations and professional work.................................................................................... 19 Series III. Topical materials.................................................................................................................. 47 Series IV. Publications by others.......................................................................................................... 79 Series V. Audiovisual materials.......................................................................................................... 101 Series VI. Recorded interviews (on cassette tape)..............................................................................104 - Page 2 - Allan Solomonow papers Summary Information Repository University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts Creator Solomonow, Allan Title Allan Solomonow papers Call number Ms. Coll. 1247 Date [bulk] 1960-2009 Date [inclusive] 1944-2016 Extent 34.8 linear feet (36 boxes) Language English Language Note Primarily English with a very small amount of Arabic, French, and Hebrew. Abstract Allan Wayne Solomonow (1937-2020) was a Jewish peace activist who was active in New York City and the San Francisco Bay area from the 1970s through the 2010s. His particular concern was Middle East peace, especially the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This collection documents Solomonow's life's work and primarily comprise his professional papers related to the Jewish peace community as well as collected secondary material that informed his thinking. - Page 3 - Allan Solomonow papers Cite as: Allan Solomonow papers, 1944-2016 [bulk: 1960-2009], Ms. Coll. 1247, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania Biography/History Allan Wayne Solomonow (1937-2020) was a Jewish peace activist who was active in New York City and the San Francisco Bay area from the 1970s through the 2010s. His particular concern was Middle East peace, especially the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Solomonow was born in Omaha, Nebraska to Edward Joseph Solomonow and Sarah Toby Kaplan and was step-son to Joseph's second wife, Frances L. Solomonow. His father was in the military and his early childhood was marked with frequent moves. In 1945, the family settled in Los Angeles, California, where Solomonow graduated from Alexander Hamilton High School in 1955. Solomonow attended the University of Illinois and the University of California, Berkeley, where he received a BA in political science in 1960. While in college, Solomonow was a member of Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity and was on the executive committee and served as Secretary-General of the 15th College Model United Nations at UC Berkeley. He was also involved in SLATE (named for a slate of candidates), the influential New Left student group active between 1957 and 1964. Solomonow also studied teaching at Antioch University, New England, where he received a Master of Art in Teaching (MAT) in Social Sciences in 1965. In New York City, Solomonow worked briefly for the Foundation for Integrative Education and as a teacher in the New York City Public Schools. During the Vietnam War, Solomonow requested Conscientious Objector status on Jewish religious grounds. However, his case was never acted upon and was deferred until past draft age. While directing the Counselor-In-Training program at Camp Ahimsa, a project of the Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA), Solomonow was invited, in 1967, to be part of a demonstration at the launching of the nuclear submarine, the "Will Rogers." During his speech, Solomonow spontaneously tore his signature off a duplicate copy of his draft card and subsequently mailed the remainder of the card to the President of the United States. He was prosecuted and sentenced in 1968 to a year in federal prison for the crime of "mutilating" a Selective Service document. In October 1968, Solomonow entered Allenwood Federal Prison in Pennsylvania, where he estimated about a quarter of the population were draft refusers. There he was assigned to teach what he described as "literacy to moonshiners and inner city blacks in the prison's educational system." Solomonow was also involved in other anti-war protests and was the subject of People v. Solomonow, 56 Misc. 2d 1050 (1968) - NY: Supreme Court 1968. - Page 4 - Allan Solomonow papers After being released from prison in 1969, Solomonow became the first national program director of the Jewish Peace Fellowship (JPF), a nondenominational Jewish organization whose work centered at the time on support for Jewish Conscientious Objectors. Among his accomplishments at JPF was editing the book Roots of Jewish Nonviolence (Nyack, N.Y.: Jewish Peace Fellowship, 1970), a copy of which was sent by JPF to every draft board in the United States. Solomonow left JPF in 1970 to become coordinator of the Committee on New Alternatives in the Middle East (CONAME), in New York City. CONAME was begun in 1969, in a time when other US peace organizations had no formal Middle East program. Like Solomonow, most of the founding members of CONAME were Jews (including Noam Chomsky, Richard Falk, Rabbi Everett Gendler, Irene Gendzier, Paul Jacobs, Robert Jay Lifton, Seymour Melman, and Don Peretz). Solomonow's activities at CONAME included organizing speaking opportunities throughout the United States for Palestinian-Israeli teams and developing support in the US for peace activists in Israel and Palestine. Eventually the organization advocated for formal Israeli-Palestinian dialogue and encouraged the end of settlement activity and military aid to Israel and the Arab countries. In 1972, Solomonow made his first trip to the Middle East to meet with both Israeli and Palestinian peace community members, and to line up speakers to bring back to the US. In 1975, CONAME ceased operations when Solomonow left to begin the Middle East Program at the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), advocating for Israeli dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and support for an independent Palestinian State. In 1975, he led the first interfaith peace tour to the region, an activity he would repeat dozens of times in the coming decades. In 1976, Solomonow founded the Middle East Peace Project (MEPP), a coalition of over 50 national and regional peace, justice, and religious organizations. Its goal was to "increase the quantity and quality of Middle East peace education work in the United States by serving as a resource to all who wish to use its good offices." The MEPP convened the Middle East Consultation Group which consisted of program officers from various national organizations with Middle East peace programs. The organization regularly distributed to its members literature on the Middle East though the Middle East Peace Literature Service which was run cooperatively with the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Like CONAME before it, MEPP also sponsored Israeli and Palestinian speakers on US tours. Besides his paid work leading Jewish peace organizations, Solomonow was a member of the Jewish peace group Breira (1973-1977), one of the earliest organizations to call for mutual Israeli-Palestinian recognition and a two-state solution to the crisis. Eventually, Breira was brought down by attacks from conservative Jewish organizations. Later he became active in the New Jewish Agenda (NJA) (1980-1992) and its Middle East Taskforce, eventually serving on the NJA steering committee. In 1980, he became a Coordinator of the national Shalom Network, an all-volunteer organization of Jewish peace and social justice organizations around the country. In its earliest years the organization operated out of Solomonow's offices at MEPP. In 1983, Solomonow joined the staff of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) as Director of the Middle East Program at their regional office in San Francisco. AFSC involvement in the Middle East goes back to 1949 when the Quaker organization provided humanitarian relief to Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip
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