History
From the early days of the 1880s to the First World War, klezmorim were present at every twist and turn of immigrant Jewish radicalism and labor organizing, from strikes to union elections.
Personal Essay
We cannot cede Jewish religion to the far right
History
Socialism on occupied and stolen land, on land that still shrieks with the blood and sweat of the disenfranchised and the expelled… It is a perversion of socialism; it is a deformity of socialism!
Music
Exiliahu's debut album is "a golem charged with raising funds for my friends from Gaza, and with giving you and your ancestors music to dance to upon the grave of Theodore Herzl."
Music
“Between the Letters” is an offering toward a diasporist aesthetic that values fragmentation, hybridity, and imagination as generative space.
Interview
"These people are traitors — they are treasonous to this world and the wonders of this world. They’re not traitors to nation; they’re traitors to creation."
Dispatches
To what extent is being “here” dependent on the decision of the diasporic guests themselves?
Translation
Translator’s Introduction: I am pleased to be continuing my series of translations from Doyres Bundistn, “Introducing the ‘Tuers,’” with the entry of Ephraim (“Frank”) Zalman Atran. While this installment only features one individual, his story presents a great deal to dig into. A barricade fighter who was shot three
The following essay, drafted by Noah Brehmer under the collective alias Vilna Goles, is an outgrowth of research undertaken in the Exilic Politics Circle. The circle was established over the past year to broadly study histories of exile as a grammar for an emergent political community beyond empire. In the
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You see the world as a Zionist, by which I mean you see the world with eyes full of darkness. You are not seeing the world as it is. Try to look at the world with socialist eyes and see.
June 4, 2025 We, the DMV Jewish Labor Bund, demand the end of the desecration of Moses Macedonia Cemetery, material reparations, and the public apologies of the Maryland Housing Opportunities Commission (HOC), the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (MNCPPC), and 1784 Holdings for their displacement of communities and destruction
Ultra-Zionist groups like Canary Mission and BETAR create lists of people that they want harassed, deported, fired, or expelled from universities (and now the country). They give these lists to Republican and Democratic Party politicians along with millions of dollars in campaign contributions via groups like AIPAC, NORPAC, etc. The
A conversation with Nora Lester Murad of #DropTheADLfromSchools.
The DMV Bund's establishment of "committees" based on the three pillars of the Bund allow organizers to better manage responsibilities and maintain organizing capacity.
At an international meeting of the Bund ten years after the Holocaust, Bundists highlighted the importance of participation in communal Jewish life, the preservation of Yiddish, and a "just peace" in Israel and Palestine.
Editor's note: This is a version of Elia Ayoub’s Master’s thesis about the war on Yiddish in Palestine written in 2016, graciously abbreviated and adapted for publication in Der Spekter. Source citations have been changed to links for easier reading. To read the original full essay
The Bundist approach at no real point degenerated into Jewish chauvinism, tribalism, or nationalism. In building an autonomous, non-separatist Jewish force in the labour, environmental, feminist, housing, queer, urbanist, and other socioeconomic liberation movements, we should strive to do the same.
Editor's note: With the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising having just passed, we offer this observation by political cartoonist Andy Singer about the perverted parallels of Israel's actions and Jewish history. I've been drawing and publishing cartoons since 1991. My clients were mostly
In honor of May Day, Der Spekter is proud to share: a kleztronica commentary on “Daloy Politsey,” the latest single by New York-based artist Chaia.
The issues faced by Jewish Americans in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, and their assessment of the New Left, are no less crucial to us now in 2025, having witnessed the failure of neoliberalism and the rise of right-wing populism.
A Yiddish-to-English translation, and new musical rendition, of the classic Bundist anthem Di Shvue (The Oath).
