Category Archives: Extraordinary Individuals

Unique Jews In a Category of Their Own

Jew of the Week: Clara Lemlich Shavelson

A Yiddish Feminist Icon

Clara Lemlich (1886-1982) was born to a religious Jewish-Russian family in what is now Horodok, Ukraine. She grew up speaking Yiddish, and learned Russian against the wishes of her parents. This actually allowed her to start a business in her youth, writing letters in Russian for her neighbours. She used the money to buy books, and soon took a deep interest in socialist literature. Following the horrors of the Kishinev Pogrom of 1903—in which 49 Jews were killed, over 500 injured, and 1500 Jewish home destroyed—the family fled to the US and settled in New York City. Lemlich got a job in the garment industry, working long hours in terrible conditions, with no breaks or benefits, and poor compensation. She joined the International Ladies’ Garment Worker’s Union and soon got elected to its executive board. Lemlich started to organize strikes and protests. During one protest, gangsters hired by her employers broke her ribs. Undeterred, in November of 1909 she gave a rousing speech (in Yiddish!) and got 20,000 workers to join her in a massive strike which came to be known as the “Uprising of the 20,000”. This then inspired male garment workers to stage a strike, too, resulting in the “Great Revolt” that brought 50,000 to protest. The result was that employers finally took notice and slowly began improving conditions for their employees. Lemlich, however, was blacklisted from working in the garment industry. Instead, she turned her attention to universal suffrage and wrote: “The manufacturer has a vote; the bosses have votes; the foremen have votes, the inspectors have votes. The working girl has no vote…” and until she gets to vote, “she will not get justice; she will not get fair conditions.” Lemlich founded the Wage Earner’s Suffrage League. Two years later, she married Joe Shavelson and started a family, switching gears to spend most of her time raising her children. Her activism continued, though, for example participating in a housewives’ boycott of kosher butcheries to protest price gouging. She would go on to join the Communist Party of America, and then to work for Progressive Women’s Councils. She campaigned against nuclear weapons, genocides, and the Vietnam War. At 81, she moved to California to be with her children and lived in a nursing home. Even then, her activism didn’t stop and she convinced the nursing home management to join in on boycotts protesting high prices on fruits and vegetables. Today, Lemlich is recognized as a major feminist icon and an inspiration for countless Jewish women.

Feminism in Judaism and the Curses of Eve

Words of the Week

The world suffers a lot not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the silence of good people.
– Napoleon Bonaparte

Jews of the Week: Esther Brandeau and Esther Abrahams

First Jews in Canada and Australia

Esther Abrahams, first Jew in Australia

Esther Abrahams (c. 1767-1846) was born in London, England to a poor Jewish family. As a struggling pregnant teenager, she was arrested for petty theft and sentenced to seven years in the new penal colony of Australia. Two months later, Esther and her baby were aboard the First Fleet: 11 ships of settlers, colonists, and prisoners headed for Australia. She arrived in Sydney in January of 1788, becoming the first Jewish person on the continent. During the voyage, she had met a British officer named George Johnston, and the two fell in love. They married and had seven children. In 1808, her husband led the Rum Rebellion in overthrowing the local British governor. Johnston became the new lieutenant-governor of the colony. While he was away for four years to defend himself against charges of mutiny, Esther ran his vast estate and business operations. Among her descendants are a number of notable Australian military and political leaders.

On the other side of the world, another Esther was the first Jew to set foot in Canada. Esther Brandeau (b. 1718) was born near Bayonne, France. To escape intense antisemitic persecution in France at the time, she dressed up as a Catholic man and got hired as a sailor for a voyage to the French colony of Quebec. Eventually, her true identity was discovered and she was arrested. Jews were forbidden from settling in Catholic Quebec at the time, and her desperate pleas for refuge were rejected. She was given an option to convert or be expelled. Brandeau chose the latter, and was shipped back to France. What happened to her afterwards is unknown. Her story has inspired at least three different novels and a play.

Words of the Week

Israel became the people conceived in slavery so that it would never cease to long for liberty…
– Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

Jew of the Week: Two-Gun Cohen

The Jewish General Revered in China and Taiwan

Moszek Abram Miączyn (1887-1970) was born in Poland to a deeply religious Jewish family. When he was two years old, the family moved to England and changed their last name to Cohen. Growing up in poverty, he got into a lot of trouble and was sent to a Rothschild-funded school for wayward youth. In 1905, his parents sent him to Canada to work on a farm, hoping it would strengthen and mature the young man. Now known as Morris Cohen, he became a typical “cowboy” and, when not raising livestock, spent his time in saloons, playing cards, shooting guns, and ending up in jail on several occasions. Cohen befriended Chinese immigrants working on the Canadian Pacific Railway. At the time, racism and abuse against the Chinese was rampant, and Cohen soon gained a reputation as the only white man who stood up for them. This eventually brought him an invitation from Sun Yat-sen, renowned philosopher and freedom fighter, who led the resistance in overthrowing the Chinese monarchy and who is today revered as a founding father in both China and Taiwan. Cohen and Sun Yat-sen became close friends. Meanwhile, Cohen enlisted in the military during World War I, fighting valiantly and rising to the rank of sergeant. When he was shot and injured in his right arm, he decided he needed to learn how to shoot with his left, too, and carried a revolver on both sides, earning the nickname “Two-Gun Cohen”. Upon his return to Canada, Cohen found himself without money or work. He headed to China and rejoined Sun Yat-sen, becoming his advisor and aide-de-camp. He helped in building China’s railways, and at the same time trained Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary troops. Cohen became Sun Yat-sen’s personal bodyguard, and was given the Chinese name Ma Kun. After Sun Yat-sen’s passing, Cohen continued to work for the Kuomintang (the Chinese Nationalist Party), and was given the rank of major-general in the Revolutionary Army. During World War II, Cohen fought alongside the Chinese against the Japanese. He was captured in one battle, imprisoned and tortured, and was only freed in December 1943 in a prisoner exchange. He settled in Montreal and got married. In 1947, as the UN vote on the partition of Israel approached, Cohen heard that China planned to oppose, so he reached out to his contacts and made sure the Chinese government would abstain, which they did. Cohen remained neutral during the China-Taiwan split in 1949, and was one of the few people in the world permitted to travel directly between the two countries, as he was admired in both. At his funeral in Manchester, England’s Blackley Jewish Cemetery in 1970, delegations from both China and Taiwan arrived, marking one of the rare occasions when the two governments appeared together in public. Cohen’s life inspired at least three films, including The Gunrunner, where Cohen’s character was played by Kevin Costner.

Words of the Week

Since the Exodus, freedom has always spoken with a Hebrew accent.
– Heinrich Heine