ACTIVIST SPOTLIGHT: ANTHONY RUSSELL
Shulem aleykhem! My name is Anthony (Mordechai Tzvi) Russell. In addition to my work as a multidisciplinary artist working in the mediums of African American and Ashkenazi Jewish culture, I’m a Creative Consultant for the Workers Circle. I’m motivated by the possibilities of cultural activism as an element of social change, both on an organizational and personal level.
In 2020, when the world was simultaneously grappling with a pandemic and societal reckonings with the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and many others, organizations Jewish and otherwise were faced with the challenge of figuring out how to speak honestly to their communities about the issue of antiracism. In June of that year, I wrote an essay for Jewish Currents about the effort of translating the phrase “Black Lives Matter” into Yiddish and how that effort spoke to historical distances between Black and Jewish communities in the United States. In the wake of that article, the Workers Circle provided a space for me to publically explore issues of systemic racism through the medium of Yiddish culture and history, from coverage of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in the Yiddish-language press to the Civil Rights-themed poetry of Yiddish poets in the Soviet Union.
For me, my time with the Workers Circle has meant being constantly inspired by the history of an organization whose efforts to combat racism began well before the 1950s and has continued to work well beyond that historic moment. What are the present struggles, solidarities and triumphs future generations will look back on with pride? With the Workers Circle, I intend to find out.