By Ella Jordan-Smith Reference Services Librarian, Center for Jewish History Building a Jewish Union and the ILGWU In 1900, eleven delegates representing seven major local unions in the Northeast convened to form the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union. All eleven of these delegates were Jewish men (the “ladies” in the organization’s name refers to the garments, not the constituency) who represented unions composed of primarily…
by Ilana Rossoff, Reference Services Research Intern, Center for Jewish History This post is part of the Jews and Social Justice Series. To view all posts in the series, click here. At the same time that they were coordinating post-war refugee relief in Europe, Jewish Labor Committee members began to take an active role in supporting African-American-led efforts to advocate for civil rights legislation. According to…
by Ilana Rossoff, Reference Services Research Intern, Center for Jewish History This post is part of the Jews and Social Justice Series. To view all posts in the series, click here. The Jewish Labor Committee is the longest existing prominent pro-civil rights Jewish labor organization. It was founded in 1934 as a union between the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA), the International Ladies Garment Workers…
by Ilana Rossoff, Reference Services Research Intern, Center for Jewish History This post is part of the Jews and Social Justice Series. To read the introduction to the series, click here. The Jewish Labor Bund was a unique and memorable force in European Jewish communal and political history. Established in Vilna in 1897, the General Jewish Labor Bund was originally conceived as a vehicle…
