Tag Archives: English Jews

Jew of the Week: Samuel Gompers

Champion of the Working Class

Samuel Gompers on the cover of TIME Magazine

Samuel Gompers on the cover of TIME Magazine

Shmuel Gompers (1850-1924) was born in London to a Jewish family that immigrated from the Netherlands. At age 10 he was taken out of school and sent to work as a cigarmaker to help his struggling family make a living. After a long day’s work, Gompers would continue his Jewish studies, focusing on the Talmud, which he later compared to studying civil law. Still struggling, the family moved again when Samuel was 13, to Manhattan. The childhood poverty he experienced inspired him to be a champion for the little guy. At 14 he joined the local cigarmakers’ union, while starting a debate club to hone his political skills. By age 25, Gompers was elected president of the local union, and later vice-president of the international union. Under his tenure, sick benefits and death benefits were introduced, along with a shorter (8 hour) work day, fair wages and safe working conditions. Gompers co-founded and headed the American Federation of Labor until his death, by which point it had over 3 million members, making it the largest such federation in the world. During this time, the AFL supported the implementation of a holiday for workers – now celebrated as Labor Day. For the first six years, he did not receive a salary for his work! His extensive knowledge got him appointed to the Council of National Defense during World War I, and in 1919 he participated in the post-war peace process as an official adviser on labor issues. At his death in 1924, Gompers was given a state funeral with thousands coming to mourn his passing. His life-long goal was giving every worker the opportunity for “a decent home, decent food and clothing, and money enough to educate their children”. He served as the central inspiration for generations of labor leaders after him. Across the US, countless streets, parks and squares are named after him, along with a class of navy ships. At his funeral it was said: “his idealism, his unfaltering courage, and love of his fellow-men were nurtured by his Jewish past… He was the pioneer of the American Labor movement and he played a great and honorable part in liberating men from bondage.”

 

Words of the Week

The desire to be good to all with no restrictions – not in the quantity of those to whom we are good, nor in the quality of the good we perform – that is the essence of the soul of Israel.
– Rabbi Avraham Itzhak Kook

Jew of the Week: Solomon Jackson

Magazines like this one owe their existence to the work of Solomon Jackson

Solomon Henry Jackson was born in late 1700s England to parents of Sephardic origin. At a young age he immigrated to the United States, settling in Pennsylvania where he got married. Noticing a great lack of Jewish texts in the New World, Jackson moved to New York and established the first Hebrew printing press in the country. With this press, he was able to publish the very first siddur/prayer book in America (a Sephardic one, catering to the majority of the Jews in the U.S. at the time, who were of Spanish and Portuguese descent), as well as the first Passover Haggada. He also started the first Jewish periodical in the U.S, a magazine called ‘The Jew’. This magazine was primarily an anti-missionary journal, published to counter the dramatic wave of missionaries that targeted poor immigrant Jews for conversion. At the time, approximately 3000 Jews were already living in the U.S., with many more arriving on its shores each day. The magazine thus helped disseminate information that prevented countless Jews from leaving behind their religion, traditions, and heritage. He was also an active leader in a nascent organization called Hevrat Hinukh Na’arim, which strove to promote Jewish education in America. In 1837, Jackson started a movement to bring more Jews to America (saving many from persecution in Europe), and settle the vast expanses of virgin land in the New World. He passed away in 1847, having built a strong foundation for Jewish life to flourish in the United States.

Shavuot Begins Tonight!

Words of the Week

You speak of what you need, but you say nothing of what you are needed for.
– Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi