Exporting Yiddish Socialism: New York's Role in the Russian Jewish Workers' Movement

Abstract

From the late 1880s to the early 1900s, Jewish socialists in the United States shipped thousands of Yiddish newspapers, journals, and pamphlets to the Russian Empire. The literature was used to spread revolutionary ideas and secular knowledge among a relatively small but growing number of Russian Jews drawn into the nascent Jewish workers’ movement. This article examines which publications were sent, how they were smuggled into and circulated within Russia, and their influence on the Jewish workers’ movement. In doing so, the article argues in favor of a transnational framework for understanding relations between Jews in the United States and Russia, one that recognizes the influence of America on developments in Russia as well as the reverse.