Shoot the Strudel to me, Yudel: Wednesday, June 11th, for Lovers of (Living) Radical Jewish History
One of the cool things about working for a magazine like Jewish Currents is that for the editors and readers of Currents, radical Jewish history isn’t just history, it’s a part of their lives. The editorial board of Currents is still run as a collective (of which I’m now a member), and the magazine has always been a vehicle for the voices of its readers, rather than a platform for the editorial board. If we covered labor and union issues, it was because a great part of our readership was union members- teachers, civil servants, wall paper hangers as well as union organizers and labor agitators.
Henry Foner fits into many of those aforementioned categories. He’s been a high school teacher, union organizer (Joint Board, Fur, Leather and Machine Workers Union), Jewish Currents editorial board member and writer, as well as a victim of the New York State communist purges of the early 1940s.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, June 11, at 6 pm, Henry Foner will be honored for his decades of service, as well as his achievements as a songwriter and bard of the organized labor world. Taking place at the Workmen’s Circle (45 East 33rd St) we will also be celebrating a new exhibit on the Labor Arts website called “Play it Again, Sam”: The Lost Chords of the Labor and Progressive Movements.
Henry Foner and his colleagues young and old will be performing songs like “Shoot the Strudel to me Yudel”, “Capitalist Boss” and “Song of the Pennies and Selling Union.”
Here’s a wonderful bio of Henry from Tamiment Library, after the jump
