List of Jewish American activists

"This is a list of notable Jewish American activists and polemicists

For other notable Jewish Americans, see List of Jewish Americans.

Activists

Animal Rights activists

*Freddy de Freitas, founder and director of the Indiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals - ISPCA

AIDS activists

*Elizabeth Glaser, founder of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation
*Larry Kramer, co-founder of GMHC

Anti-corporate activists

*Judi Bari, environmentalist (Jewish mother)
*Robert "Gypsy Boots" Bootzin, Health food and fitness guru
*Laurie David, environmental activist
*Rob Reiner, actor, director, producer, writer and anti-tobacco activist; son of Carl Reiner [R. Reiner — [http://www.dailynewstribune.com/artsCulture/view.bg?articleid=74975] "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.""]
*Henry Spira, animal rights activist
*Ron Rosen, alternative medicine and Native American rights activist (d.2007)
*John Wilner, director of the CounterCorp Film Festival

Anti-racist

*Kivie Kaplan, head of the NAACP
*Winona LaDuke, Native American activist & environmentalist (Jewish mother)
*Stanley Levison, Communist Party USA member, 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
*Tim Wise, anti-racism activist

Anti-war

*Leslie Cagan, founder of UPJ
*Daniel Ellsberg, leaked the Pentagon Papers
*Allen Ginsberg, poet and Pentagon-levitator
*Jeremy Glick, author & son of September 11 victim (WTC)
*Allard K. Lowenstein, politician and anti-Vietnam war leader
*Bernard Lown, co-founder of IPPNW, Nobel Peace Prize (1985)
*Murray N. Rothbard, writer

Anti-Zionist

*Elmer Berger, Reform rabbi, deceased
*Noam Chomsky, linguist, historian and pamphleteer
*Norman Finkelstein, defunct former Professor, (denied most recent tenure at DePaul University)
*Fred Newman, founder of International Workers Party
*Adam Shapiro, member of International Solidarity Movement

Civil liberties

*Felix Frankfurter, Supreme Court Justice, helped found the ACLU
*Nadine Strossen, head of ACLU (father half Jewish holocaust survivor)

Conversatives and neoconservatives

*Midge Decter, writer
*David Horowitz, writer, activist, commentator
*Irving Kristol, founder of American Neoconservatism.
*William Kristol, editor, writer
*Rabbi Daniel Lapin, founder of Toward Tradition
*Jay Lovestone, AFL-CIO cold warrior; earlier, chairman of Communist Party USA ousted on orders from Stalin
*John Podhoretz, writer and commentator
*Norman Podhoretz, writer

Counterculture

*Abbie Hoffman, co-founder of the Yippie
*Ed Rosenthal, cannabis activist
*Jerry Rubin, co-founder of the Yippie
*A.J. Weberman, Yippie activist, author

Electronic rights activists

*Mitch Kapor, co-founder of EFF
*Bruce Perens, open source advocate, co-founder of SPI
*Richard Stallman, founder of FSF
*Jonathan Tasini, National Writers Union leader, fighter for electronic rights for authors

Feminism and gay rights

*Bella Abzug, feminist politician, deceased
*Gloria Allred (1941–) lawyer and radio talk show hostcite news | last =Waxman| first =Sharon| coauthors=Richard Siklos| title =New Dispute Over Firing of Publisher| pages=| publisher =The New York Times| date =2006-12-19 | url =http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/business/media/19regan.html?ref=media| accessdate =2006-12-18 ]
*Bettina Aptheker (1944–) lesbian activist, author, and educator ["other Jewish authors who may be of interest... Bettina Aptheker"]
*Andrea Dworkin, feminist writer
*Susan Faludi, feminist writer
*Leslie Feinberg, transgender activist & author
*Clara Fraser, founder of Radical Women and the Freedom Socialist Party [http://www.socialism.com/Clarasmemorial.html]
*Betty Friedan, co-founder & first president of NOW
*Franklin E. Kameny, gay rights leaderCitation
last = Johnson
first = David K.
year = 2002
contribution = Franklin E. Kameny (1925-)
editor-last = Bullough
editor-first = Vern L.
editor-link = Vern Bullough
title = Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context
place = New York
publisher = The Haworth Press
pages = 209-218
isbn = 1560231939]
*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 writercite news|last=Ross|first=Ross|coauthors=|title=Rebecca Walker bringing message to Expo|pages=|publisher=Pensacola News Journal|date=2007-04-08|url=http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070408/NEWS01/704080331/1005|accessdate=2007-04-08]
*Naomi Wolf, feminist writer
*Evan Wolfson, gay marriage activist

Cults

*Maurice Davis, Rabbi, testified to joint-Congressional panel in 1976
*Steven Hassan, exit counselor author, "Combatting Cult Mind Control"
*Rick Ross, consultant on cults

Gun rights advocacy

*Sandra Froman — President of the National Rifle Association (NRA), second female president and first Jewish presidentcite journal | last =Weinstein Bilson| first=Mara| authorlink =| coauthors =| title =The President of the National Rifle Association is Jewish?| journal =Moment Magazine| volume =| issue =| pages =| publisher =| date = | url =http://www.momentmag.com/features/dec06/2006-12_Froman.html| doi =| id =| accessdate =2006-12-04| format =Dead link|date=May 2008 ]

Hate groups

*Daniel Burros, American Nazi Party and KKK activist (committed suicide in 1965 when his background was revealed)

*Adam Yahiye Gadahn, Al Qaeda member, federal fugitive (son of musician Phil Pearlman, who converted from Judaism to Christianity)
*Harold von Braunhut, wealthy Aryan Nation and KKK supporter, deceased (born Jewish according to Washington Post)

Immigration reform

*Kinky Friedman, country singer, 2006 candidate for Governor of Texas

Leaders of Jewish communal organizations

*Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe
*Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League

Liberal and leftwing activists (miscellaneous)

*Michael Albert, co-founder of Z Magazine
*Saul Alinsky, community organizer
*Ben Cohen, founder of TrueMajority
*Jeff Cohen, founder of FAIR
*John Garfield, blacklisted actor, left-liberal activist
*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 OSI
*Barbra Streisand, entertainer, liberal activist and fundraiser
*David Lempert, Founder of Unseen America Projects, Inc. and author of Modern Democracy Amendments.

Jewish Defense

*Freddy de Freitas, founder and director of the New Republican Vegetarian Jews,
*Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League, deceased
*Mordechai Levy, founder and chairman of the Jewish Defense Organization,
*David Marcus ("Mickey" Marcus), U.S. Army Colonel, hero of Israeli War of Independence
*Avi Weiss, Orthodox rabbi, leader of Free Soviet Jewry movement

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

Pro-life

*Nat Hentoff, author and columnist

Rights of Ethiopian Jews

*Graenum Berger, founder of American Association for Ethiopian Jews

ocialists, anarchists and communists (historical)

*Alexander Berkman, anarchist leader
*Daniel De Leon, revolutionary socialist leader
*Emma Goldman, anarchist leader
*Murray N. Rothbard, anarchist 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
*Jackie Presser, Teamster leader, racketeer

Weather Underground and its offshoots

*Kathy Boudin, Weather Underground member and convicted terrorist
*David Gilbert, Weather Underground member and convicted terrorist
*Mark Rudd, SDS leader during 1968 Columbia University strike; later a Weather Underground member

See also

*Jewish left

Footnotes