What This Is
“The Progressive Jew” was launched in 2023 to help accelerate the addition of Zionism, Trumpism, and other less-than-useful “isms” to the ash heap of history. This publication is pro-equality, pro-democracy, pro-choice, anti-war, anti-propaganda, and anti-fascist.
The “radical” views you’ll see on display here include a belief in equal rights, regardless of religion, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, and gender identity; healthcare as a human right; a living wage for every worker; free public college tuition; climate change as an existential threat; policing reimagined; gun sanity; and a woman’s right to not be forced into giving birth.
Posts in “The Progressive Jew” are fact-, evidence-, and reality-based, with a focus on solutions.
Who I Am
I’m the son of a Pearl Harbor survivor and master electrician (my dad) and former numbers runner whose first language was Yiddish (my mom). I was a child of the post-war Baby Boom from the Jersey side of the Hudson River. As a teen, I was almost shot to death on the Manhattan side, but I’ll save that for another time.
Life for me began in a set of railroad rooms inside a cramped apartment above a saloon in Passaic. In a version of “white flight,” our family moved from a neighborhood turning majority-nonwhite to one that was about 100% white and determined to stay that way.
Seven of us and a junkyard-like dog lived in a 988-square-foot home with one bathroom on a busy street just a few minutes from where we started out. It was a highly segregated place at a time of deep racial resentment on the lily-white side of a viaduct. A good number of the whites I knew weren’t fond of nonwhites. No surprise: decades later, lots of guys I grew up with would become Trump supporters.
Both my grandfathers were raised in Lodz, Poland, as Orthodox Jews. My paternal grandfather came from a Hasidic home but bought a Western-style suit and shaved off his payes (curly sideburns) before boarding a boat to Ellis Island shortly after the turn of the 20th century. My maternal grandfather remained observant and ensured we were enrolled in an Orthodox Hebrew school physically connected to our Orthodox synagogue (shul) in Passaic. It was run by a well-known rabbi who happened to be his longtime friend.
I began Hebrew school when Israel was less than two decades old. Our Jewish community was deeply committed to Zionism. In fact, I can’t recall a single anti-Zionist Jew from my childhood. Many members of that community considered Arabs – and Palestinians in particular – the enemy and even less than fully human. As a young person, I was misled into defending Israel. This I deeply regret.
Part of what made me vulnerable to Zionist mythology as a child: my grandparents’ siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins perished in the Holocaust. A great-aunt’s family was saved by a priest – a “Righteous Gentile” – during the Nazi occupation of France. Another great-aunt managed to depart Berlin in 1939, several months after Kristallnacht and shortly before the exit doors closed (in Hebrew, I was named for her husband – a fellow refugee from Nazi Germany). The ghettoization and ethnic cleansing of my family members ultimately helped turn me into an opponent of ghettoization and ethnic cleansing – even when the oppressors are Jewish Zionists.
I believe Israeli oppression is un-Jewish. As a Jew, I know it’s easier for me to say that. When Zionists attempt to place their standard labels on progressive Jews, they tend to look foolish.
From growing up in a sea of bigotry, I understand how human beings acquire supremacist views. I think I’m in a good position to help nudge some of them to the right side of history.
I’m a longtime writer with a desire to advance a progressive agenda. As a Jew who was deceived into defending apartheid Israel early on, I have an obligation to speak out. At this point in my life, with fewer tomorrows than yesterdays, I’m in something of a hurry. And at this age, I don’t give a f**k what some people think.
I appreciate the opportunity to share my views, stories, frustrations, dreams, and ideas with you. Thank you for giving “The Progressive Jew” a look. If you like what you see, please take a subscription. It’s free.
