May Day and the Reclamation of the Jewish Radical Tradition

In most of the world, May 1, May Day, is a grand holiday to celebrate the power and unity of the international working class. But in the United States, the leading capitalist power, that’s not typically the case.

May Day was actually founded here in the United States, first sanctified on May 1, 1889 as a part of the fight for the eight-hour day. It also commemorated the third anniversary of a US general strike that began on May 1, 1886. May Day was then exported globally as a way to remember the Haymarket martyrs: eight labor leaders wrongly convicted for throwing a bomb in Chicago’s Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886. Of the eight, four were executed, one took his own life in prison, and three were eventually pardoned. Before being hanged for conspiracy to commit murder, August Spies memorably said, “If you think that by hanging us, you can stamp out the labor movement—the movement from which the downtrodden millions, the millions who toil and live in want and misery—the wage slaves—expect salvation—if this is your opinion, then hang us! Here you will tread upon a spark, but there, and there, and behind you and in front of you, and everywhere, flames will blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out.”

In other words, May Day is as American as apple pie. And yet, the unions, the media, and the government here either pay it little mind or have actively suppressed its history. This speaks to a country, as articulated so beautifully in Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, that has an earthshaking history of class struggle but continues to suffer from the absence of a mass labor or social-democratic party as well as low union density. As a result, there is little public knowledge of the labor struggles that have periodically rocked this country.

And yet even without official sanction, mass organizations, or public celebration, activists in this country have kept the May Day tradition alive as an occasion for grassroots protest. This year, appropriate for these troubled times, May Day demonstrations will be particularly large. As labor reporter Mike Elk wrote in his PayDay Report newsletter, “We have now found that unions will be hosting walkouts in at least 65 [now up to 100, according to Elk’s latest] cities across the United States. Hundreds of unions are involved, and the list is growing as groups like Indivisible lead their support to the movement.”

The National Education Association—hardly the IWW—even has a May Day tool kit in which it writes, “On May 1, 2026, educators will join workers, parents, students, and community members to rise up for dignity, justice, and public investment in our lives, not in billionaires’ profit margins. This toolkit provides guidance to help you join the May Day Strong National Day of Action and make a bold impact for our schools and communities.”

While the NEA’s broad call to demonstrate focuses on the economic oligarchs looting the country, May Day will be animated on the ground by those protesting the issue of our time: the wars being carried out by the United States and Israel on Iran and Lebanon as well as the continued ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

Into this May Day mélange of workers’ rights and anti-imperialism steps the Jewish anti-Zionist organizations that have recently broken new ground on the arid US left. Members of these groups tell me that they view May Day as a time not to only cry out against war but also to recall and reclaim the Jewish radical labor tradition with which they identify. Max Ewart, an organizer with the DC-Maryland-Virginia chapter of the International Jewish Labor Bund said to me, “Jewish people are not perceived to be workers, whether that is by non-Jewish people or other Jews. There are a lot of reasons why that is the case. Assimilation, antisemitism, and Zionism have all played a role in this lost identity. This was not always the case, however. In Europe, the Jewish working class was immense and prideful. The Jewish Labor Bund held May Day rallies that saw over 100,000 people in attendance. Jews should march on May Day, because we always have and because it is only through class solidarity that we can see a world liberated from capitalism.”

The Jewish Bund and its anti-Zionist and socialist past is experiencing a revival on the heels of Molly Crabapple’s best-selling book about the Bund, Here Where We Stand Is Our Home. She unearths a proud Jewish tradition of self-organized groups seeing their liberation as inextricably tied with the labor movement and radical struggle. Over the last 80 years, a variety of factors have buried this history. The upward mobility and assimilation of the children and grandchildren of Jewish immigrants has been a factor, but the main issue has been that the politics of solidarity across religious, racial, and ethnic lines runs counter to what became the dominant strain of Jewish politics: the ethnonationalist pessimism and the unquestioning support for the apartheid state of Israel demanded by Zionism.

Sara Katz, a union organizer who also works with the DC Metro chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, told me, “I draw inspiration from ancestors…. Two remarkable women were Clara Lemlich, who led 20,000 garment workers on strike in 1909, and Rose Schneiderman, who helped raise awareness of the unsafe working conditions garment workers endured following the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911.”

Katz then pivoted to a broader view saying, “Our collective values as anti-Zionist Jews fighting for the liberation of all people compels us to always show up in solidarity with worker struggles in the US and globally alongside our organizing for a free Palestine. It is only through building strong community networks and organized workplaces that we will be able to ensure we all have what we need to thrive.”

The labor struggles of the Jewish people are not only a nod to the past but also front and center with JVP-DC-metro labor work. Organizer Jacob Zionts spoke with me about the fight in Maryland for a statewide divestment campaign targeting the state’s retirement and pension system’s more than $60 million investment in Israeli bonds. These bonds “function as unrestricted loans that enable Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians. Maryland is choosing to invest the money of its workers, including our members, in dispossession and death…. In the case of this campaign, organized workers are workers who are better equipped to break the bonds that unjustly tie their civic labor to genocide and war by demanding that their retirement and pension are not invested in Israeli bonds.”

Stefanie Fox, the executive director of JVP, also made the point that “of course there will be thousands of anti-Zionist Jews in the streets on international workers day! Our work organizing for a free Palestine is deeply connected to hundreds of years of radical Jewish labor organizing…. That legacy isn’t just historic—more than 20 percent of JVP members today are unionized workers. All of our fights are connected, and now is the time to act like it, and to rise up together.”

Expect May Day demonstrations to be vast, reflecting a country where 50 percent of the population “strongly opposes” the president’s erratic, violent, authoritarian leadership. The presence of a Jewish anti-Zionist radicalism means that young Jews are ready to re-embrace their radical roots—roots that have been poisoned by the smog of Zionism for far too long. Or as one organizer said to me as joyously as the kid who finds the afikomen on Passover, “I’ll see you in the streets.”

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