Workers Circle

WORKERS CIRCLE. (Yiddish: Arbeter Ring. For most of its history called the Workmen’s Circle in English.) The roots of the Workers Circle go back to 1892, when a group of Jewish immigrant workers met on New York’s Lower East Side to found a new mutual-aid society. The new society was to differ from other such groups by its devotion to the cause of the working class and the absence of quasi-masonic or religious ritual. Despite the opposition of many socialist and anarchist intellectuals, who feared that the Workmen’s Circle would draw attention away from the weak trade-union and political movements, many radical workers joined the new association. By 1899 branches had been organized in Harlem and in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The three branches, joined by another in Brooklyn, reorganized the Workmen’s Circle into a national Jewish labor fraternal order in 1900. The order grew rapidly, particularly between 1906 and 1910, when it expanded from 6,776 members to 38,866. During this time, the arrival of many veterans of the failed Russian Revolution of 1905 contributed to the order’s growth. The new arrivals, most notably followers of the Jewish Labor Bund, successfully pushed for increased support for Yiddish cultural expression, over the objections of the more “cosmopolitan” old guard. Between 1910 and 1920, the Workmen’s Circle developed a broad cultural and educational program that included lectures, publications, theater groups, choruses, and orchestras.

One of the most significant new initiatives by the Workmen’s Circle was the establishment of a system of secular Jewish schools for children. The first schools opened in 1917, following a resolution passed by the 1916 convention. They aimed to acquaint the children with the Yiddish language and literature, instruct them in Jewish history, and cultivate in them an affinity for the socialist ideals of their parents. Summer camps supplemented the schools.

The split between the Socialists and Communists tested the organization severely during the 1920s. The Workmen’s Circle’s early attitude toward the Soviet Union was one of critical support. Starting in 1922, however, the order’s conventions also regularly adopted resolutions calling for the liberation of socialist political prisoners in the Soviet Union. Confrontations between “Left” and “Right” became increasingly acrimonious throughout the 1920s, echoing clashes within the garment unions and other branches of the Jewish labor movement. The Communists and their allies were finally ousted in 1929.

The depression and the rise of fascism in Europe provided the context for the order’s development in the 1930s. The Workmen’s Circle participated in the decade’s anti-Nazi boycotts and protests, raised money for the republican struggle in Spain, and formed the backbone of the Jewish Labor Committee, formed in 1934 to aid Jewish labor organizations in Europe and Jewish socialist refugees from fascism. In 1932 the order continued its traditional support for the Socialist Party, but by 1936 many members had come to support the New Deal as the implementation of much of the Socialist program. In 1940, concern for the fate of the Jews under Nazi rule led the order to repudiate the Socialist Party’s pacifist stance and endorse Roosevelt for the first time.

Severe restrictions placed on immigration following World War I eliminated the order’s most important source of new members. Membership reached its peak in 1925 at nearly eighty-five thousand, but declined slowly thereafter. The average age of members, on the other hand, grew steadily from 28.3 years in 1911 to 55.03 in 1951. American-born, English-speaking Jews made up an increasingly large proportion of the membership, especially after World War II.

After World War II, the Workmen’s Circle’s politics grew more moderate, though it retained links to the labor movement. But at the turn of the 21st century, the organization renewed its focus on social justice work, redefining itself as an activist group, especially around issues related to workers’ and immigrant rights. Although only a small handful of its Yiddish schools survived, it also continued to promote a progressive Jewish identity through secular Jewish education and cultural activities, with an emphasis on Yiddish. It changed its official name to the non-gendered “Workers Circle” in 2019.

The benefits provided by the Workmen’s Circle to its members were for most of its history central to the order’s existence. The first convention in 1901 established a series of sick and death benefits, and in later years the order provided its members with an extensive insurance program and low-cost health care. As the needs of its membership shifted, so did the services offered – for a time the order ran its own tuberculosis sanitarium; later it opened a home for the aged. In the 21st century, the organization no longer offered material benefits to its largely American-born and middle-class membership.

Epstein, Melech. Jewish Labor in USA: An Industrial, Political, and Cultural History of the Jewish Labor Movement. 2 vols. New York, 1950–1953. Reprint. New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1969.

Hertz, J. S. 50 yor arbeter-ring in yidishn lebn. New York: National Executive Committee of the Workmen’s Circle, 1950.

Michels, Tony. A Fire in their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005).

Shapiro, Judah J. The Friendly Society: A History of the Workmen’s Circle. New York: Media Judaica, 1970.

Soyer, Daniel. Jewish Immigrant Associations and American Identity in New York, 1880-1939.(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997).

Workers Circle website. https://circle.org/