International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

Abraham Frumkin was among the leading intellectuals of the late nineteenth-century European Jewish anarchist movement, best known as editor of Arbeter Fraint . He was born into a politically active Jewish family in Jerusalem. After an early career in journalism he spent a year teaching Arabic at the Belkind School in Jaffa, and in 1891 went to Constantinople to study law. When his promised funding failed to materialize he traveled to New York, among whose Jewish immigrant community he first encountered anarchist ideas. On his return to Constantinople in 1894 Frumkin found an enthusiastic audience for his newfound radicalism in Russian exiles Moses and Nastia Shapiro. The couple's home became a rendezvous for the city's revolutionaries, and after visiting London's East End in 1895 Shapiro introduced Frumkin to Yiddish-language anarchist newspaper Arbeter Fraint . Frumkin began contributing material, and in April 1896 moved to London where he took over as editor. As part of the nucleus of committed activists surrounding the paper he became a respected figure within London's Jewish migrant community, influential in stimulating trade union consciousness among the immigrant workers. In 1896, Frumkin and Shapiro opened a print-shop where they published Yiddish translations of European classics and radical literature. On Shapiro's return to Constantinople following the suspension of ... log in or subscribe to read full text