Portside

The legacy of nationalism looms large over our program, and over my own studies of Yiddish literature and culture.We learn about the Bundists, the largest and most influential Jewish socialist movement both in Czarist Russia and in interwar Poland which sought to walk the fine line between celebrating and fostering Jewish workers and their culture (meaning especially Yiddish), while remaining a part of the international socialist movement and opposed to nationalism.

Exposing troubling ties in the U.S. to overt Nazi and fascist protesters in Ukraine. White supremacist banners and Confederate flags were draped inside Kiev's occupied City Hall, and demonstrators have hoisted Nazi SS and white power symbols over a toppled memorial to V.I. Lenin. Sieg heil salutes and the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol have become an increasingly common site in Maidan Square, and neo-Nazi forces have established "autonomous zones" in and around Kiev.