Cover of “The Radical Jewish Tradition: Revolutionaries, Resistance Fighters and Firebrands”

The Radical Jewish Tradition:Revolutionaries, Resistance Fighters and Firebrands

by Donny Gluckstein and Janey Stone

  • Paperback

    384 pages / 19 May 2026 / 9781836741756

    Forthcoming

An inspiring account of Jewish socialist struggles against Tsarist pogroms, exploitative sweatshops, and murderous Nazis across three continents

The Radical Jewish Tradition recovers a neglected and suppressed history of Jewish resistance to oppression. Collected here are sto­ries of heroism and selflessness that trace their origins to resis­tance against the nineteenth-century Tsarist Empire. These radical Jews—most of them working class—found common cause with oth­er oppressed groups. They refused to be defined as victims.

This inspiring tradition was ultimately checked by the callous indif­ference of capitalist governments to refugees before the Second World War and to the Holocaust. Donny Gluckstein and Janey Stone revive this history for the benefit of a world in crisis. They consider this legacy and its impact on modern Jewish identity. At a time when a bellicose Israeli government claims to represent Jews the world over, the history of these radicals bursts the constraints placed on the historical imagination.

Here is a story central to the socialist movement as well as an ob­ject lesson for all those struggling to resist.

Reviews

  • This timely book is an excellent antidote to any attempt to de-historicise conflicts such as the one raging in historical Palestine. Pre-Zionist Jewish life and culture invalidates the absurd attempt to equate Zionism with Judaism and anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

    Ilan Pappé, author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

  • As the authors say, ‘The battle for memory is also a battle for the present.’ The Zionists don’t want us to know there is a different answer to antisemitism than the Israeli state. The ruling class doesn’t want us to know there are ways to defeat their divide and rule scapegoating. The Radical Jewish Tradition sets the record straight.

    Clare Fester, Associate Director Los Angeles-based Jewish cultural organization Yiddishkayt

  • A thought-provoking history of Jewish radical movements sounded as an appeal for modern political liberation.

    Kirkus Reviews