List of Jewish American activists

This is a list of notable Jewish American activists.

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

Activists

AIDS activists

• Mary Fisher
• Elizabeth Glaser, founder of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation
• Larry Kramer, co-founder of GMHC

Anarchists

• Alexander Berkman, anarchist leader
• Emma Goldman, anarchist leader
• Murray N. Rothbard, anarchist leader

Animal rights

• Rachel Hirschfeld
• Roberta Kalechofsky, founder of Jews for Animal Rights
• Richard H. Schwartz, President of the Jewish Vegetarians of North America
• Henry Spira

Anti-communism

• Elliott Abrams
• Louis Fischer
• Benjamin Gitlow
• Melvin J. Lasky
• Jay Lovestone, AFL-CIO cold warrior; earlier, chairman of Communist Party USA ousted on orders from Joseph Stalin

Anti-racist

• Balfour Brickner
• Maurice Davis
• Jack Greenberg (lawyer), leading member of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and co-Founder of the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF)
• Kivie Kaplan, head of the NAACP
• Winona LaDuke, Native American activist and environmentalist (Jewish mother)
• Stanley Levison, advisor to Martin Luther King
• Abel Meeropol, composer of anti-lynching song Strange Fruit
• Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, CORE activists, KKK victims
• Joel and Arthur Spingarn, early NAACP leaders
• Tim Wise

Anti-war

• Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink
• Michael Berg, anti-Vietnam war activist.
• Noam Chomsky, linguist, historian and author
• Daniel Ellsberg, leaked the Pentagon Papers
• Norman Finkelstein, critique of Israeli violations of human rights of the Palestinians, house demolitions and targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants
• Allard K. Lowenstein, politician and anti-Vietnam war leader
• Bernard Lown, co-founder of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Nobel Peace Prize (1985)

Atheists

• Christopher Hitchens, literary critic and political activist^[1][2]

Civil liberties

• Felix Frankfurter, Supreme Court Justice, helped found the American Civil Liberties Union
• Carl Gershman, President of the National Endowment for Democracy

Conservatives and neoconservatives

• Andrew Breitbart, publisher.
• Midge Decter, writer
• Matt Drudge
• Dan Fefferman
• Arthur J. Finkelstein
• George Friedman
• Will Herberg
• David Horowitz, writer, activist, commentator
• Robert Kagan
• Irving Kristol, founder of American Neoconservatism
• William Kristol, editor, writer
• Rabbi Daniel Lapin, founder of Toward Tradition
• Mark Levin, radio commentator and writer
• John Podhoretz, writer and commentator
• Norman Podhoretz, writer
• Michael Savage
• Bret Stephens

Counterculture

• Allen Ginsberg, poet
• Abbie Hoffman, co-founder of the Youth International Party (Yippies)
• Ed Rosenthal, cannabis activist
• Jerry Rubin, co-founder of the Yippie movement
• A.J. Weberman, Yippie activist, author

Education

• Naftuli Moster, founder of YAFFED

Electronic rights activists

• Mitch Kapor, co-founder of Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Bruce Perens, open source advocate, co-founder of Software in the Public Interest
• Richard Stallman, founder of Free Software Foundation
• Aaron Swartz, co-founder of Demand Progress
• Jonathan Tasini, National Writers Union leader, fighter for electronic rights for authors

Environmental activists

• Judi Bari
• Barry Commoner
• Laurie David
• Paul R. Ehrlich
• Eban Goodstein

Feminism and gay rights

• Bella Abzug, feminist politician, deceased
• Gloria Allred (1941–), lawyer and radio talk show host^[3]
• Bettina Aptheker (1944–), lesbian activist, author, and educator^[4]
• Andrea Dworkin, feminist writer, deceased
• Susan Faludi, feminist writer
• Leslie Feinberg, transgender activist and author
• Clara Fraser, founder of Radical Women and the Freedom Socialist Party^[5]
• Betty Friedan, co-founder and first president of NOW, deceased
• Erica Jong, author and columnist
• Franklin E. Kameny, gay rights leader^[6]
• 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 writer^[7]
• Naomi Wolf, feminist writer
• Evan Wolfson, gay marriage activist

Gun rights advocacy

• Sandra Froman, President of the National Rifle Association (NRA), second female president and first Jewish president^[8]

Health advocacy

• Robert "Gypsy Boots" Bootzin, health food and fitness advocate
• Rob Reiner, actor, director, producer, writer and anti-tobacco activist; son of Carl Reiner^[9]

Immigration reform

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

Jewish Defense

• Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League, deceased
• Mordechai Levy, founder and chairman of the Jewish Defense Organization
• Avi Weiss, Orthodox rabbi, leader of Free Soviet Jewry movement

Land reform

• Wolf Ladejinsky

Leaders of Jewish communal organizations

• William Daroff
• Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League
• Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe

Liberal and left-wing activists

• Michael Albert, co-founder of Z Magazine
• Saul Alinsky, community organizer
• Ben Cohen, founder of TrueMajority
• Jeff Cohen, founder of FAIR
• Melech Epstein
• 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 Open Society Institute
• Barbra Streisand, entertainer, liberal activist and fundraiser
• Howard Zinn, author

Libertarian activists

• Cliff Asness
• Murray Bookchin
• Frank Chodorov
• David D. Friedman
• Victor Niederhoffer
• Murray N. Rothbard, writer

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 the early 1980s

Palestinian rights

• Anna Baltzer
• Elmer Berger, founder of American Jewish Alternatives to Zionism
• Max Blumenthal, author, journalist, and blogger
• Norman Finkelstein, former professor (denied most recent tenure at DePaul University)
• Adam Shapiro

Pro-life

• Nat Hentoff, author and columnist

Radical left

• Leslie Cagan, founder of United for Peace and Justice
• Bernardine Dohrn, leader of Days of Rage
• David Gilbert
• Terry Robbins
• Mark Rudd, Students for a Democratic Society leader during 1968 Columbia University strike
• Laura Whitehorn

Rights of Ethiopian Jews

• Graenum Berger, founder of American Association for Ethiopian Jews

Socialists and communists (historical)

• Abraham Cahan
• Daniel De Leon, revolutionary socialist 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
• Fred Newman, founder of International Workers Party
• Rose Finkelstein Norwood, labor leader

Zionists

• David Werner Amram (1866–1939), director of Federation of American Zionists
• Samuel S. Bloom (1860–1941)
• David Brog, Executive Director of Christians United For Israel
• Jacques Torczyner (1914–2013)
• Stephen Samuel Wise (1874–1949)
• Baruch Zuckerman (1887–1970)

See also

• Jewish left
• Jewish right

Footnotes

1. Look who's talking The Observer, 14 April 2002
2. Hitch-22, page 352.
3. Waxman, Sharon; Richard Siklos (2006-12-19). "New Dispute Over Firing of Publisher". The New York Times. Retrieved 2006-12-18.
4. "other Jewish authors who may be of interest... Bettina Aptheker"
5. "Clara Fraser, 1923-1998: American rebel and architect of socialist feminism". Archived from the original on 2004-03-09.
6. Johnson, David K. (2002). "Franklin E. Kameny (1925-)". In Bullough, Vern L. Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context. New York: The Haworth Press. pp. 209–218. ISBN 978-1-56023-193-6.
7. Ross, Ross (2007-04-08). "Rebecca Walker bringing message to Expo". Pensacola News Journal. Retrieved 2007-04-08.
8. Weinstein Bilson, Mara. "The President of the National Rifle Association is Jewish?". Moment Magazine. Archived from the original on December 6, 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-04.
9. R. Reiner — "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.""