What We Did: The American Jewish Communist Left and the Establishment of the State of Israel by Dorothy M. Zellner

Art by Dalia Shevin of Justseeds

Perhaps you’ve wondered about what some of our forebears were doing while the Nakba was occurring, and where they stood on the question of a Jewish state. I was also eager to know, so I went to Jewish Life, the predecessor of today’s Jewish Currents, and to the Daily Worker and Political Affairs, the essential Communist Party publications, and read them from 1946 through 1949 to find out. For me, as a Red Diaper Baby and a Jewish activist working for Palestinian rights, the discovery was traumatic: this is a sad story with a strong moral: beware of the strength of nationalism to undermine precious principles.

— Dorothy M. Zellner

Read below or click here to download the PDF of the manuscript.