Members of the Socialist Workers Party and Communist Leagues in Canada, Australia and the U.K. are discussing the stakes in joining fights against Jew-hatred. They’re talking to workers at their doorsteps, on union picket lines and at protests against Hamas’ Oct. 7 pogrom killing over 1,200 people, overwhelmingly Jews, in Israel and the rising assaults targeting Jews worldwide. They’re meeting people interested in learning about the party’s program to replace capitalist rule with workers power and open the road to ending Jew-hatred and all oppression once and for all.
By the end of week seven of the eight-week fall campaign to expand the reach of the Militant, party branches are on target with 1,195 subscriptions sold toward the goal of 1,350. The goal of selling the same number of books by SWP and other revolutionary leaders is already over the top, with 1,609 sold.
Contributions continue to come in to the SWP’s $140,000 Party-Building Fund, boosted by the party’s response to a turning point in world politics following Hamas’ massacre. In every area plans are being laid to complete the fund in full and on time.
Port trucker Dilraj Singh met SWP congressional candidate Margaret Trowe in front of a Walmart store in San Leandro, California, Nov. 5. A campaign table with a sign condemning the Jew-hating pogrom in Israel attracted his attention.
Singh told Trowe he welcomed the party’s defense of Israel’s right to exist. And he described another massacre, this one of Sikhs, that took place in India in 1984. The Indian army killed more than 1,000 in an attack on the Golden Temple in Punjab. The assault aimed to smash rising opposition to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s government.
Singh bought a year’s subscription to the Militant, copies of Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power by SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes and The Low Point of Labor Resistance Is Behind Us: The Socialist Workers Party Looks Forward. And he gave $50 to the Party-Building Fund.
In Richmond, California, Trowe spoke with Marcelino Nuno, an Uber driver Nov. 12. “My daughter told me she’s upset about civilians dying in Gaza. I told her how Hamas puts people in danger by using them as human shields. I’m against Hamas and what it did,” Nuno said. He subscribed to the Militant, bought a copy of The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation by Abram Leon and contributed $5 to the Party-Building Fund.
Some 200 people attended a Nov. 9th vigil and remembrance of Kristallnacht at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie, Illinois. The event commemorated the 85th anniversary of the Nazis unleashing a horrific nationwide pogrom in Germany, a decisive turning point in their war to exterminate Jews.
“Why does this keep happening to the Jews?” asked a woman sitting near SWP members Lisa Rottach and Mary Martin.
Class roots of Jew-hatred
“The class roots of Jew-hatred breed this persecution,” Martin said, showing her The Jewish Question. “Violent dispossession and virulent scapegoating of Jews have been around for thousands of years. These pogroms will continue until working people, led by a working-class revolutionary party, are organized to overthrow capitalism.” The woman bought the book and took a campaign statement the party distributes nationwide by Rachele Fruit, SWP candidate for U.S. Senate from Florida.
Another participant took a copy of the statement and the Militant and gave $20. “This is for what your party is doing,” he said.
On the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis Nov. 13, students and others passed with curious, approving or angry glances at a table displaying the sign, “Defend Israel’s right to exist as a refuge for Jews — Socialist Workers Party.”
“Some debated with us in sharp disagreement,” SWP member Gabrielle Prosser told the Militant, “and others stopped to share their agreement with our stance. Several stopped to say it was the first time they’ve seen anyone stand up against this growing Jew-hatred.”
“Israel has the right to exist, and that’s because Jews have the right to exist,” student Frank Bass told SWP member Edwin Fruit. “This war has created an environment of Jew-hatred, and my Jewish friends can’t be openly Jewish, can’t be themselves, without being called terrorists.”
“Jew-hatred is a threat not just to Jews, but to all working people. It’s important we all take a stand against it,” Fruit replied.
A different issue caught the attention of Michelle Arellano when Lisa Potash, SWP candidate for Congress from Georgia, and party member Marklyn Wilson showed her a copy of the Militant on her doorstep in Fort Valley, Georgia, Nov. 10. Fort Valley, 90 miles south of Atlanta, is an agricultural area where pecans, peaches and cotton are major crops.
Looking at the paper, Arellano pointed to an article describing the rising challenges workers face raising children. She said that a family member is facing $3,000 in bills so far for the impending delivery of her baby. Arellano subscribed to the Militant and got a copy of Are They Rich Because They’re Smart? Class, Privilege, and Learning Under Capitalism.
To campaign with SWP or CL members, contact the nearest branch.
