Interview
How do we get the ADL out of schools?
A conversation with Nora Lester Murad of #DropTheADLfromSchools.
Latest
Dispatches
How the Pillars of the Bund Can Guide Local Organizing
The DMV Bund's establishment of "committees" based on the three pillars of the Bund allow organizers to better manage responsibilities and maintain organizing capacity.
History
World Jewry, the State of Israel, and the Defence of Yiddish: Statements and Resolutions from the Third World Bund Conference, 1955
At an international meeting of the Bund ten years after the Holocaust, Bundists highlighted the importance of participation in communal Jewish life, the preservation of Yiddish, and a "just peace" in Israel and Palestine.
History
The Zionist War on Yiddish in Palestine
Editor's note: This is a version of Elia Ayoub’s Master’s thesis about the war on Yiddish in Palestine written in 2016, graciously abbreviated and adapted for publication in Der Spekter. Source citations have been changed to links for easier reading. To read the original full essay
Dispatches
Bundism Today, Part 2: Yiddishkeit
The Bundist approach at no real point degenerated into Jewish chauvinism, tribalism, or nationalism. In building an autonomous, non-separatist Jewish force in the labour, environmental, feminist, housing, queer, urbanist, and other socioeconomic liberation movements, we should strive to do the same.
Visual Arts
Andy Singer's Observations: Ghetto
Editor's note: With the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising having just passed, we offer this observation by political cartoonist Andy Singer about the perverted parallels of Israel's actions and Jewish history. I've been drawing and publishing cartoons since 1991. My clients were mostly
Music
Daloy Politsey: a Yiddish “Fuck the Police” for May Day
In honor of May Day, Der Spekter is proud to share: a kleztronica commentary on “Daloy Politsey,” the latest single by New York-based artist Chaia.
History
The Jews and the Left in America: Reprint from Jewish Socialist Critique, 1979
The issues faced by Jewish Americans in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, and their assessment of the New Left, are no less crucial to us now in 2025, having witnessed the failure of neoliberalism and the rise of right-wing populism.
Music
Di Shvue/The Oath: A Bilingual Version of the Bundist Anthem
A Yiddish-to-English translation, and new musical rendition, of the classic Bundist anthem Di Shvue (The Oath).
News
Philosemitism, Project Esther, & the Hijacking of Jewish Identity
Project Esther exemplifies the efforts to position Jews in opposition to “the progressive left's obsession with LGBTQ+ and all other minorities” and exposes the right’s attempt to wield Jewishness for its Christian Nationalist ends.
History
Introducing the ‘Tuers’: Translations from Doyres Bundistn, part 1
Translator’s Introduction: דורות בונדיסטן [Doyres Bundistn] was edited by the Bundist Jacob Sholem Hertz, who published many books about the history of the General Jewish Labor Bund. These three volumes contain over 500 short biographical entries about rank-and-file Bundists by various authors. The Bundist term for an activist, “tuer”
Dispatches
Bundism Today, Part 1: Bundist Organizing Principles
If Bundists are known in local Jewish communities as radicals hated by the establishment, but respected for their strength and inspiring in their message by a significant part of the general Jewish population, we will be in a fantastic position.