ACTIVIST SPOTLIGHT: JOSH HOROWITZ

Josh is on the far left

Sholem aleykhem [Hello]! My name is Josh, or Yoshke, Horowitz, and I am the current Yiddish Cultural Activism Fellow at the Workers Circle. I first got involved with the Workers Circle in college when I was approached by one of their college organizers, and invited to come to Washington to engage in civil disobedience. It was the first time I ever went to D.C., and I am proud that I got to spend the trip fighting for our democracy.

After that trip, I got very involved with the Workers Circle, taking Yiddish classes, going to protests, and becoming part of the community. Last summer I had the great fortune of going on the 2023 Trip to Yiddishland as a member of the College Network cohort and getting to know so many incredible and inspiring members of the Workers Circle, who work so hard to make the world a better place and to continue the long, proud legacy of di linke, the Jewish left.

I recently graduated from New York University, and plan to start a master's degree in Yiddish studies in a few months. As my knowledge of and connection to Yiddish has grown, I have only ever found more and more inspiration from activists past, the songs that they sang, the stories that they wrote, and the world that they fought for. I think of Dos naye lid [The new song] by Avrom Reyzen, sung at so many Workers Circle seders and by so many hopeful people, and I can fight on.

 Un zol vi vayt nokh zayn di tsayt

Fun libe un fun sholem,

Dokh kumen vet, tsi fri, tsi shpet,

Di tsayt––es iz keyn kholem!

And however far away the time

of love and peace may be,

it will come nonetheless, sooner or later,

that time– it is no dream!