 Members of the Chutzpah Collective in 1977 | |
| Founded | 1971 |
|---|---|
| Location | |
The Chutzpah Collective (also known as the Chutzpah Jewish Liberation Collective) was a left-wing Jewish collective active in Chicago during the 1970s. The collective published the newspaper Chutzpah.
The Chutzpah Collective was founded in 1971 as a "Jewish liberation collective". Members had been active in the movement against the Vietnam War and in the civil rights movement. The collective defined itself as anti-imperialist, anti-racist, and anti-sexist, and credited "emerging Black and Latino pride" movements for inspiring them to embrace Jewish pride. The collective supported the Soviet Jewry movement. Due to their opinion that "Arab threats to exterminate Israeli Jews" and because "Working-class Jews in changing urban neighborhoods were being physically harassed, the collective closely followed and partially supported the Jewish Defense League (JDL), but criticized the JDL's "right-wing racist politics." The collective had its roots with two dozen Jews gathered through friend networks, articles in underground papers such as the Chicago Seed, and Hillel rabbis. This group of Jewish activists called themselves "Am Chai", with some members of "Am Chai" going on to form other groups, including the Chutzpah Collective. The collective identified with "socialist Zionism" and critiqued leftists who allegedly gave uncritical support to Arab states and Palestinian militants, which was deemed antisemitic. Emphasizing "Yiddish consciousness" and "secular Judaism", the organization was dedicated to the Jewish socialist tradition in the US and Europe. Working-class Jewish issues were emphasized by the collective because they felt "the needs of working-class Jews are often ignored" because "Many Jews and gentiles deny that such Jews exist." [1]
Embracing the women's liberation and gay liberation movements, the collective altered Jewish prayers to be gender-inclusive, held Seders dedicated to women and gay people, and developed new ceremonies such as the simchat bat, a welcoming ceremony for infant girls. [2]
In December 1971, the collective held an "anti-imperialist" Hanukkah party. The collective objected to the commercialization of Hanukkah and the assimilationism they felt had turned the holiday into a "pale imitation of the goyish holiday of Christmas." [3]
The journal Chutzpah was the official organ of the Chutzpah Collective. The first issue of Chutzpah was published in 1972. [2]
In 1977, the collective published Chutzpah: A Jewish Liberation Anthology. [4]
The Chutzpah Collective existed for about a decade, disbanding in 1982. [2] [5]
Hanukkah is a Jewish festival commemorating the recovery of Jerusalem and subsequent rededication of the Second Temple at the beginning of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BCE.
Judaism is an Abrahamic monotheistic ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jewish people. Along with Samaritanism, to which it is closely related, Judaism is one of the two oldest Abrahamic religions.
The Jewish Defense League (JDL) is a far-right religious and political organization in the United States and Canada. Its stated goal is to "protect Jews from antisemitism by whatever means necessary"; it has been classified as "right-wing terrorist group" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) since 2001, and is also designated as hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. According to the FBI, the JDL has been involved in plotting and executing acts of terrorism within the United States. Most terrorist watch groups classify the group as inactive as of 2015.
Meir David HaKohen Kahane was an American-born Israeli Orthodox ordained rabbi, writer, and ultra-nationalist politician who served one term in Israel's Knesset. Founder of the Israeli political party Kach—whose legacy continues to influence militant and far-right political groups active today in Israel,—he was convicted of multiple acts of terrorism in the United States and in Israel.
Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of a land outside Europe. With the rejection of alternate proposals for a Jewish state, it eventually focused on the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, a region corresponding to the Land of Israel in Judaism, and of central importance in Jewish history. Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible. Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism became Israel's national or state ideology.
Jewish fundamentalism refers to fundamentalism in the context of Judaism. The term fundamentalism was originally used in reference to Christian fundamentalism, a Protestant movement which emphasizes a belief in biblical literalism. Today, it is commonly used in reference to movements that oppose modernist, liberal, and ecumenical tendencies within societies as well as modernist, liberal and ecumenical tendencies within specific religions and it is often coupled with extremist ideologies and/or political movements. The use of this definition is important in a Jewish context because the two movements which are most commonly associated with Jewish fundamentalism, Religious Zionism and Haredi Judaism, stray far from biblical literalism due to the importance of the Oral Law within Judaism. In fact, Karaism, the Jewish movement which is well-known due to its emphasis on biblical literalism, is rarely considered fundamentalist.
Peronism, also known as justicialism, is an Argentine ideology and movement based on the ideas, doctrine and legacy of Argentine ruler Juan Perón (1895–1974). It has been an influential movement in 20th- and 21st-century Argentine politics. Since 1946, Peronists have won 10 out of the 14 presidential elections in which they have been allowed to run. Peronism is defined through its three flags, which are: “Economic Independence”, “Social Justice” and “Political Sovereignty”.
Identity politics is politics based on a particular identity, such as ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, denomination, gender, sexual orientation, social background, caste, and social class. The term could also encompass other social phenomena which are not commonly understood as exemplifying identity politics, such as governmental migration policy that regulates mobility based on identities, or far-right nationalist agendas of exclusion of national or ethnic others. For this reason, Kurzwelly, Pérez and Spiegel, who discuss several possible definitions of the term, argue that it is an analytically imprecise concept.
Supremacism is the belief that a certain group of people is superior to all others. The supposed superior people can be defined by age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, language, social class, ideology, nationality, culture, generation or belong to any other part of a particular population.
Soviet anti-Zionism is an anti-Zionist and pro-Arab doctrine promulgated in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. While the Soviet Union initially pursued a pro-Zionist policy after World War II due to its perception that the Jewish state would be socialist and pro-Soviet, its outlook on the Arab–Israeli conflict changed as Israel began to develop a close relationship with the United States and aligned itself with the Western Bloc.
Jewish extremist terrorism is terrorism, including religious terrorism, committed by extremists within Judaism.
The League of Revolutionary Struggle (Marxist–Leninist) was a Marxist–Leninist[1] movement in the United States formed in 1978 by merging communist organizations. It was dissolved by the organization's leadership in 1990.
Jewish secularism refers to secularism in a Jewish context, denoting the definition of Jewish identity with little or no attention given to its religious aspects. The concept of Jewish secularism first arose in the late 19th century, with its influence peaking during the interwar period.
Judaism's doctrines and texts have sometimes been associated with violence or anti-violence. Laws requiring the eradication of evil, sometimes using violent means, exist in the Jewish tradition. However, Judaism also contains peaceful texts and doctrines. There is often a juxtaposition of Judaic law and theology to violence and nonviolence by groups and individuals. Attitudes and laws towards both peace and violence exist within the Jewish tradition. Throughout history, Judaism's religious texts or precepts have been used to promote as well as oppose violence.
Lehava is a far-right and Jewish supremacist organization based in Israel that strictly opposes Jewish assimilation, objecting to most personal relationships between Jews and non-Jews. It is opposed to the Christian presence in Israel. It has an anti-miscegenation focus, denouncing marriages between Jews and non-Jews forbidden by Orthodox Jewish law. The group has over 10,000 members. In 2024, the United States placed Lehava and its leader, Bentzi Gopstein, on a sanctions list for their role in fomenting Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, labeling Lehava "the largest violent extremist organization in Israel."
Kach was a radical Orthodox Jewish, religious Zionist political party in Israel, existing from 1971 to 1994. Founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane in 1971, based on his Jewish-Orthodox-nationalist ideology, the party earned a single seat in the Knesset in the 1984 election, after several electoral failures. However, it was barred from participating in the next election in 1988 under the revised Knesset Elections Law banning parties that incited racism. After Kahane's assassination in 1990, the party split, with Kahane Chai breaking away from the main Kach faction.
The Jewish left consists of Jews who identify with, or support, left-wing or left-liberal causes, consciously as Jews, either as individuals or through organizations. There is no one organization or movement which constitutes the Jewish left, however. Jews have been major forces in the history of the labor movement, the settlement house movement, the women's rights movement, anti-racist and anti-colonialist work, and anti-fascist and anti-capitalist organizations of many forms in Europe, the United States, Australia, Algeria, Iraq, Ethiopia, South Africa, and modern-day Israel. Jews have a history of involvement in anarchism, socialism, Marxism, and Western liberalism. Although the expression "on the left" covers a range of politics, many well-known figures "on the left" have been of Jews who were born into Jewish families and have various degrees of connection to Jewish communities, Jewish culture, Jewish tradition, or the Jewish religion in its many variants.
Labor Zionism or socialist Zionism refers to the left-wing, socialist variant of Zionism. For many years, it was the most significant tendency among Zionists and Zionist organizations, and was seen as the Zionist faction of the historic Jewish labour movements of Eastern Europe and Central Europe, as opposed to the more popular General Jewish Labour Bund which opposed the creation of a Jewish state or emigration to Palestine. Labor Zionism eventually developing local movements in most countries with sizable Jewish populations. Unlike the "political Zionist" tendency founded by Theodor Herzl and advocated by Chaim Weizmann, Labor Zionists did not believe that a Jewish state would be created by simply appealing to the international community or to powerful nations such as the United Kingdom, Germany, or the former Ottoman Empire. Rather, they believed that a Jewish state could only be created through the efforts of the Jewish working class making aliyah to the Land of Israel and raising a country through the creation of a Labor Jewish society with rural kibbutzim and moshavim, and an urban Jewish Proletariat.
Matzpen is the name of a revolutionary socialist and anti-Zionist organisation, founded in Israel in 1962 which was active until the 1980s. Its official name was the Socialist Organisation in Israel, but it became better known as Matzpen after its monthly publication.
