Members of the Socialist Workers Party and of the Communist Leagues in Australia, Canada and the U.K. are responding to the horrific Jew-hating massacre at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, Dec. 14. Two Islamist thugs shot dead 15 people and wounded dozens more who were attending a Hanukkah celebration.
Party branches organized members to campaign widely in the working class to explain the stakes for the labor movement in combating Jew-hatred and antisemitic attacks. They campaigned door to door in working-class neighborhoods, at union picket lines and at vigils and protests called in response to the killings. They issued press statements and are organizing Militant Labor Forums to condemn the murders and to point a working-class road forward.
Party members are also introducing the Militant to fellow workers. It provides weekly coverage of the struggle against Jew-hatred and explains why the defense of Israel as a refuge for Jews is key to advancing that fight.
They’re also introducing the book The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch: Stakes for the International Working Class, published by Pathfinder Press shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, pogrom that killed 1,200 people in Israel.
“Hundreds of millions are being drawn into world politics by the unfolding crisis of the imperialist system and its ramifications in every corner of the globe,” the book’s first chapter says. “The rise in Jew-hatred and violence that has marked the opening decades of the twenty-first century — from the Middle East to North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific — is deeply rooted in this global crisis.”
The book documents the record of the communist movement combating Jew-hatred going back to V.I. Lenin and the Bolshevik-led 1917 revolution in Russia.
In Seattle, SWP member Rebecca Williamson met Sydney Nelson, a high school student living in Auburn, Washington, about 30 miles south of the city Dec. 13. Nelson said he discusses what’s going on in the world with his friends.
“Hamas was in the wrong to attack Israel, and Israel must defend itself. However, they don’t have the right to kill thousands of Palestinian children,” he said.
“For years, Hamas stashed its weapons under apartment buildings, schools and hospitals deliberately increasing the casualties of Palestinians,” Williamson said. “Hamas is a Jew-hating organization whose origins go back to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who met with Hitler in order to expand the Nazi’s slaughter of Jews to the Middle East.”
She showed him the Militant and The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch. “This book shows it’s possible to end pogroms, with a fight for political power by the working class as happened in the early years of the Russian Revolution. It also contains the founding document of Hamas that shows it’s not a national liberation organization,” she said.
Nelson subscribed to the Militant. “We were just talking about this a couple of days ago,” he said. “Who is right, Israel or Hamas? I say Israel was because it was attacked. I’m interested to learn more about what the paper presents.”
In New York, SWP members Willie Cotton and Seth Galinsky attended a menorah lighting ceremony of some 200 people at Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza Dec. 14. Rabbi Menashe Wolf, a friend of Rabbi Eli Schlanger, and of those murdered in Sydney, said several people had asked if the celebration would be canceled because of the massacre. The response had to be the opposite, he said, “to rise up and shine brighter.”
Cotton and Galinsky distributed 60 copies of a statement by Paul Mailhot, chairperson of the New York SWP, condemning the murderous assault. “The Socialist Workers Party will continue to tell the truth,” Mailhot wrote, “that fighting Jew-hatred is an essential part of working people fighting for our own class interests.”
In Atlanta, Susan LaMont, a leader of the SWP there, wrote a letter condemning the attacks to the Atlantic Jewish Times. She also submitted it to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and a Black community newspaper, the Atlanta Voice and to others.
SWP members Lisa Potash and Marklyn Wilson went to a Dec. 15 menorah-lighting ceremony of 75 people where they met Dena Schusterman. They invited her to a Dec. 21 Militant Labor Forum where Potash is leading a speak-out against the Jew-hating murders in Australia. Schusterman got a copy of the Militant.
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In Oakland SWP members campaigned for party candidates Norton Sandler for governor of California and Margaret Trowe for Congress, in Atchison Village in Richmond, Dec. 14. Eric Simpson met Rosa Sanchez, a banquet server currently on disability and a UNITE HERE member. She pointed to the importance of fights by hospital and hotel workers for better wages.
“What ICE is doing is terrible. They will pick you up on the street just because of your face and ask for papers,” she told Simpson. “Our union UNITE HERE is fighting for immigrants. If you’ve worked a job for years and don’t have a Social Security number, we are demanding that the hotel not be able to fire you.”
Simpson gave her a copy of the SWP campaign flyer calling for “Amnesty for undocumented workers: It’s in the interests of all working people.” He pointed to “the example of the fight by Kilmar Abrego García against deportation for the rest of the labor movement. He’s backed by his union, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers. He’s out of jail now because of the fight his union and others have put up.”
Sanchez signed up for a subscription to the Militant. “We have to fight for a better world,” she said.
On Chicago’s South Side, SWP members Leroy Watson and Lisa Rottach campaigned Dec. 13 for David Rosenfeld, the SWP candidate for U.S. Senate. They met retired worker Herb Ivory.
“I think Trump is trying to fool the public into going to war. There’s no other reason to have all of these soldiers in military gear in Chicago,” Ivory said. “I follow the news. I see what they’re doing to us, to Venezuela. It’s wild.”
“The capitalist government represents the billionaires, not the working class,” Rottach said. “There is stiffening competition for markets and resources among the rival capitalist governments around the world. They will launch another world war, if need be, to further their interests. The working class must wage a revolutionary struggle for power, and strip the war-making power out of their hands.”
In the apartment complex where Ivory lives, the landlords “want to raise our rent from $800 to $2,000! We face losing our home. We’ve had tenant meetings and talked until our heads fall off, but they’re driving ahead,” he said.
“Housing under capitalism is just another way to turn profits,” Watson said. “Workers deserve affordable and comfortable housing. That’s another reason we must take power into our own hands and wield that power to meet the needs of the working class.”
Ivory said he looked forward to reading his copy of the Militant, and he wanted to stay in touch.