While the Jewish social justice movement is growing and thriving today, with a diverse range of organizations tackling issues across the country and beyond, this isn’t the first time that progressive organizing has taken a strong foothold in the Jewish community. Pursue recently sat down with Ezra Berkley Nepon to learn more about New Jewish Agenda, a significant force for Jewish progressives in the 1980s, as Ezra’s book on the history of the organization awaits a Spring 2012 release:
How did you first learn about the New Jewish Agenda, and what inspired you to dig more deeply into its history?
I learned about New Jewish Agenda (NJA) because I was reading a lot of fantastic Jewish feminist writing like Bridges Journal and Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz’s The Issue Is Power. I kept seeing references to NJA and I wondered what this organization was, that had so many inspiring activists and thinkers involved. When I realized that NJA had been active as a national progressive Jewish movement from 1980 to 1992, but there was really no public record of their work, I was even more curious. As I learned about this organization that was courageous in their work as “a Jewish Voice Among Progressives and a Progressive Voice Among Jews,” I felt as though I was finding the progressive Jewish home I had been looking for. I was hungry for NJA’s story, so I went digging in their boxes at the NYU Tamiment Archive to find out more.
What is the most surprising thing you’ve learned in your research?
I knew that there was a long history of Jewish American activism working for Middle East peace and justice, but I didn’t know a lot of specifics like the fact that Jewish activists had called for a freeze on Israeli settlements in the West Bank as early as 1983. New Jewish Agenda brought a resolution on this issue to the General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations – a huge public education opportunity. I also didn’t know that Jewish activists were actively engaged in Central American solidarity, work for worldwide nuclear disarmament, anti-apartheid organizing, and really every major political issue of the 1980s. I was thrilled to learn that NJA had such a range of progressive campaigns and built analysis that is still really informative.
What do you hope contemporary social justice-minded Jews will take away from the story of NJA?
NJA was an exciting in-gathering of secular and religious Jewish activists who accomplished a huge body of work and shifted conversations on international issues. At the same time, NJA was a feminist organization that recognized that the personal is political. Activists in NJA addressed anti-Semitism on the Left and the silencing of dissent within mainstream Jewish organizations, and they didn’t shy away from looking at internal issues of classism, racism, and homophobia. They had a truly intersectional political analysis that is still illuminating, two decades after they shut down.
What do you do when you’re not working on this project? Do you have any ideas for future research?
These days I’m pursuing an M.A. with a focus called Transformative Language Arts, working as a grassroots fundraising consultant, and I just starred in a really fun short video called “Little Orphan Gender Revolutionary Annie” where Orphan Annie sings about gender self-determination and dances on a toy theater stage.
Right now I’m really excited to study and document the creative work of my friend Jenny Romaine, who has a brilliant methodology around creating New Yiddish Theater that mixes archival texts with modern culture. I’m inspired by Jenny’s work on a creative and scholarly level, and I also just love performing in the spectacles she manifests.
To learn more about the book and how you can help support its publication, click here. To hear more from Ezra, check out this recent interview on radio613.
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