List of Jewish American activists
This is a list of notable Jewish American activists.
For other notable Jewish Americans, see List of Jewish Americans.
Activists
AIDS activists
- Elizabeth Glaser, founder of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation
- Larry Kramer, co-founder of GMHC
- Mary Fisher
Anarchists
- Alexander Berkman, anarchist leader
- Emma Goldman, anarchist leader
- Murray N. Rothbard, anarchist leader
Animal rights
- Rachel Hirschfeld
- Roberta Kalechofsky, founder of Jews for Animal Rights
- Richard H. Schwartz, President of the Jewish Vegetarians of North America.
- Henry Spira
Anti-communism
- Elliott Abrams
- Louis Fischer
- Benjamin Gitlow
- Melvin J. Lasky
- Jay Lovestone, AFL-CIO cold warrior; earlier, chairman of Communist Party USA ousted on orders from Joseph Stalin
Anti-racist
- Balfour Brickner
- Maurice Davis
- Jack Greenberg (lawyer), leading member of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and co-Founder of the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF)
- Kivie Kaplan, head of the NAACP
- Winona LaDuke, Native American activist & environmentalist (Jewish mother)
- Stanley Levison, advisor to Martin Luther King
- Abel Meeropol, composer of anti-lynching song Strange Fruit
- Michael Schwerner & Andrew Goodman, CORE activists, KKK victims
- Joel & Arthur Spingarn, early NAACP leaders
Anti-war
- Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink
- Noam Chomsky, linguist, historian and author
- Daniel Ellsberg, leaked the Pentagon Papers
- Allard K. Lowenstein, politician and anti-Vietnam war leader
- Bernard Lown, co-founder of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Nobel Peace Prize (1985)
- Norman Finkelstein, critique of Israeli violations of human rights of the Palestinians, house demolitions and targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants
Atheists
- Christopher Hitchens, literary critic and political activist[1][2]
Civil liberties
- Felix Frankfurter, Supreme Court Justice, helped found the American Civil Liberties Union
- Carl Gershman, President of the National Endowment for Democracy
Conservatives and neoconservatives
- Midge Decter, writer
- Matt Drudge
- Dan Fefferman
- Arthur J. Finkelstein
- George Friedman
- Will Herberg
- David Horowitz, writer, activist, commentator
- Robert Kagan
- Irving Kristol, founder of American Neoconservatism.
- William Kristol, editor, writer
- Rabbi Daniel Lapin, founder of Toward Tradition
- Mark Levin, radio commentator and writer
- John Podhoretz, writer and commentator
- Norman Podhoretz, writer
- Michael Savage
- Bret Stephens
Counterculture
- Allen Ginsberg, poet
- Abbie Hoffman, co-founder of the Youth International Party (Yippies)
- Ed Rosenthal, cannabis activist
- Jerry Rubin, co-founder of the Yippie movement
- A.J. Weberman, Yippie activist, author
Education
- Naftuli Moster, founder of YAFFED
Electronic rights activists
- Mitch Kapor, co-founder of Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Bruce Perens, open source advocate, co-founder of Software in the Public Interest
- Richard Stallman, founder of Free Software Foundation
- Jonathan Tasini, National Writers Union leader, fighter for electronic rights for authors
- Aaron Swartz, co-founder of Demand Progress
Environmental activists
Feminism and gay rights
- Bella Abzug, feminist politician, deceased
- Gloria Allred (1941–), lawyer and radio talk show host[3]
- Bettina Aptheker (1944–), lesbian activist, author, and educator[4]
- Andrea Dworkin, feminist writer, deceased
- Susan Faludi, feminist writer
- Leslie Feinberg, transgender activist & author
- Clara Fraser, founder of Radical Women and the Freedom Socialist Party [5]
- Betty Friedan, co-founder & first president of NOW, deceased
- Erica Jong, author & columnist
- Franklin E. Kameny, gay rights leader[6]
- Harvey Milk, murdered gay rights activist and openly gay politician
- Robin Morgan, editor of Ms. Magazine
- Ernestine Rose, feminist
- Gloria Steinem, founder of Ms. Magazine (Jewish father)
- Rebecca Walker (1969–), feminist writer[7]
- Naomi Wolf, feminist writer
- Evan Wolfson, gay marriage activist
Gun rights advocacy
- Sandra Froman — President of the National Rifle Association (NRA), second female president and first Jewish president[8]
Health advocacy
- Robert "Gypsy Boots" Bootzin, health food and fitness advocate
- Rob Reiner, actor, director, producer, writer and anti-tobacco activist; son of Carl Reiner[9]
Immigration reform
- Kinky Friedman, country singer, 2006 candidate for Governor of Texas
Land reform
Leaders of Jewish communal organizations
- William Daroff
- Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League
- Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe
- Rabbi Robert J. Marx, founder of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs
Liberal and left-wing activists
- Michael Albert, co-founder of Z Magazine
- Saul Alinsky, community organizer
- Ben Cohen, founder of TrueMajority
- Jeff Cohen, founder of FAIR
- Melech Epstein
- William Kunstler, civil rights lawyer
- Al Lewis, actor, Green Party candidate, anti-prison and anti-drug war activist
- Eli Pariser, campaigns director of MoveOn.org
- George Soros, founder of Open Society Institute
- Barbra Streisand, entertainer, liberal activist and fundraiser
- Howard Zinn, author
Libertarian activists
- Cliff Asness
- Murray Bookchin
- Frank Chodorov
- David D. Friedman
- Victor Niederhoffer
- Murray N. Rothbard, writer
Jewish Defense
- Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League, deceased
- Mordechai Levy, founder and chairman of the Jewish Defense Organization,
- Avi Weiss, Orthodox rabbi, leader of Free Soviet Jewry movement
- David Draiman
Nazi hunters and Holocaust educators
- Marvin Hier, Orthodox rabbi, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center
- Eli Rosenbaum, director of the Department of Justice's Office of Special Investigations since 1995; Nazi hunter since early 1980s
Palestinian rights
- Anna Baltzer
- Elmer Berger, founder of American Jewish Alternatives to Zionism
- Norman Finkelstein, former professor, (denied most recent tenure at DePaul University)
- Adam Shapiro
- Max Blumenthal author, journalist, and blogger
Pro-life
- Nat Hentoff, author and columnist
Radical left
- Leslie Cagan, founder of United for Peace and Justice
- Bernardine Dohrn, leader of Days of Rage
- David Gilbert
- Terry Robbins,
- Mark Rudd, Students for a Democratic Society leader during 1968 Columbia University strike
- Laura Whitehorn
Rights of Ethiopian Jews
- Graenum Berger, founder of American Association for Ethiopian Jews
Socialists and communists (historical)
- Abraham Cahan
- Daniel De Leon, revolutionary socialist leader
- Charles Ruthenberg, early leader of the Communist Party USA
- Max Shachtman, democratic socialist leader and theorist
Trade union leaders
- David Dubinsky, labor leader
- Samuel Gompers, labor leader
- Sidney Hillman, labor leader
- Fred Newman, founder of International Workers Party
Zionists
- David Werner Amram (1866–1939), director of Federation of American Zionists
- Samuel S. Bloom (1860–1941)
- David Brog, Executive Director of Christians United For Israel
- Jacques Torczyner (1914–2013)
- Stephen Samuel Wise (1874–1949)
- Baruch Zuckerman (1887–1970)
See also
Footnotes
- ↑ Look who's talking The Observer, 14 April 2002
- ↑ Hitch-22, page 352.
- ↑ Waxman, Sharon; Richard Siklos (2006-12-19). "New Dispute Over Firing of Publisher". The New York Times. Retrieved 2006-12-18.
- ↑ "other Jewish authors who may be of interest... Bettina Aptheker"
- ↑ "Clara Fraser, 1923-1998: American rebel and architect of socialist feminism". Archived from the original on 2004-03-09.
- ↑ Johnson, David K. (2002). "Franklin E. Kameny (1925-)". In Bullough, Vern L. Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context. New York: The Haworth Press. pp. 209–218. ISBN 978-1-56023-193-6.
- ↑ Ross, Ross (2007-04-08). "Rebecca Walker bringing message to Expo". Pensacola News Journal. Retrieved 2007-04-08.
- ↑ Weinstein Bilson, Mara. "The President of the National Rifle Association is Jewish?". Moment Magazine. Archived from the original on December 6, 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-04.
- ↑ R. Reiner — "Reiner, however, said Gibson also must do some "major soul-searching." "It’s not a matter of just apologizing for some words you’ve said," said Reiner, who is Jewish. "It’s to really understand why it is you’re anti-Semitic and where those feelings came from.""
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, April 02, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.