The Workmen's Circle

“AD: Labor Day is only a few weeks from High Holidays this year. What lessons do you think we should be taking into 5778?

AT: This New Year, when our Jewish community gathers together, we must contemplate a world full of both significant challenges and real opportunities to join together and effect change. There are endless issues for us to work on, and many different approaches for activism. At the Workmen’s Circle I have outlined our priorities; other organizations will have equally important, though different priorities. We all must acknowledge that different foci on change does not negate the importance of other activism. There are so many issues that require protection and activism; no one person or one organization can hope to cover our society’s entire need for change. We must unite around the goal of resistance to this massive, right wing offensive. Ultimately, our strength to yield real change will lie in effective base-building over individual actions. I am hopeful that 5778 will present us in the Jewish community the chance to build a major coalition and together act against the intolerance and hate that is emanating from the highest levels of our government today. Only through a strong, united effort will we be able to effect change at every level.”

What:  EMERGENCY Health Care Vigils When:  Wednesday, June 28th, 5:30pm – 7:30pm Where:  NYC - Foley Square in Lower Manhattan, across from federal building at 26 Federal Plaza Look For Workmen’s Circle Signs and Stand with Us!

Tomorrow the Senate starts debating the Republican’s new (and very destructive) health care bill.  Conceived under the cloak of secrecy, we now know that it is really a Trump/Republican tax cut for the wealthy, poorly disguised as a new health care plan.  The worst of this is that it will take away critical health coverage from those who need it most—the Congressional  Budget Office just estimated that 22 million people will lose coverage if this bill passes, with the poor and the elderly the hardest hit.

The Senate is scheduled to vote on this bill by the end of this week. NOW IS THE TIME FOR URGENT ACTION. We at the Workmen’s Circle have long fought for healthcare for all.  We must stand up now and fight this “healthcare only for the rich” plan.

Tomorrow night, Wednesday, June 28th, vigils against this bill are scheduled to happen all over the country, starting with a "Hands Around The Capital" event in Washington DC.

In NYC there will be an important action from 5:30-7:30pm in Foley Square in lower Manhattan.

The Workmen's Circle will be there, standing together with hundreds of other participating organizations. We urge all of you to join us in NYC or at a local event. Please forward this email and invite your family, friends and co-workers to join us in this fight to save our health care protections.

In Foley Square, look for the Workmen's Circle signs. For other vigils around the country please contact [email protected] to find out about activities near you.

Two weeks ago, we joined thousands of people across our country who were rising up and demanding an end to the Trump Administration’s racist and unjust policies!

We stood in the shadow of massive May Day Mobilizations, which date back to 1886 in Chicago, when workers called for a general strike in support of an eight-hour workday. Soon after, it was adopted by workers throughout the world, becoming a global worker holiday by 1890, and was a regular day of worker action into the mid-1900’s.

Eleven years ago, in 2006, May Day was revived by the immigrant rights community, and immigrant and union activists have continued to stand together on May 1st each year.

The Workmen’s Circle’s progressive Jewish community was proud in 2017 to be standing strong across the United States with a coalition of immigrant rights and labor organizations, all of us responding to an urgent call to action—as we have done since our founding more than a century ago–when we ourselves were a new immigrant community rising up each May Day.

As I said when speaking from the stage before thousands of people gathered on Foley Square this month: When he seeks to divide, we rise up to unite.

The oppression that the President and his administration are spreading harms us all! But it is especially cruel to our immigrant community with its ongoing threat to tear apart families. And we can never forget the terrible impact it is having on immigrant children, many of whom are living in constant fear of being separated from their parents.

Standing beside me on the stage in Foley Square were three students from our Workmen’s Circle Midtown School. I was so proud to introduce Ben, a fifth grader in our school, who spoke passionately—to a crowd of more than 10,000 activists—in support for our immigrant brothers and sisters. Ben’s speech—which you can see in this video—was simply inspiring.

As we said from the stage, we will fight Trump’s attacks on immigrants and his inhumane deportation orders. We will fight his attempt to build a border wall and close our borders to those who need us most. We will fight his attacks on our right to collectively bargain. And, we will fight at every turn his agenda of hatred and exclusion.

74 years ago today, Jewish resistance fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto—many in their teens and twenties—launched a sustained guerrilla battle in response to a planned mass deportation to the death camps.

They fought without hope of victory, but with the goal that they would not die in silence. Poorly armed and supplied, they managed to hold off the German army from April 19th to May 16th. It was the largest single revolt by the Jews during the Holocaust.

Their incredible heroism still resonates, and charges us to live lives that pay tribute to their resistance and sacrifice.

Matzapalooza Helps Families Prepare for Passover and Learn More about its Holiday Traditions 

“The most well-known of them, the “Driter Seder” (Third Seder), which takes place during the intermediate days of Passover, was popularized in New York by the Workmen’s Circle. The Workmen’s Circle’s Yiddish-language Haggadah is still widely used (sometimes partially, sometimes in its entirety) at public cultural seders, and by alumni of the secular Yiddish schools and summer camps.”

Today, the Workmen’s Circle commemorated the 106th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire at a ceremony at the site of the fire near Washington Square Park, at which I spoke and called upon our New York State and local elected officials to “pass State and City laws to ensure that New York City remains a sanctuary city and New York is a sanctuary state.” Here are my full remarks:

Read more here: