New Jewish Agenda Records 1980-circa 1992

ArchivalResource

New Jewish Agenda Records, 1980-circa 1992

New Jewish Agenda Records 1980-circa 1992

http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/tam_183/tam_183.html

New Jewish Agenda (1980-1992), was a progressive multi-issue organization whose members included secular and observant Jews drawn from many sectors of the Left. NJA had some forty-five local chapters and five task forces: Middle East, Economic and Social Justice, Nuclear Disarmament, Central America, and the Feminism (later to include AIDS) task force. NJA also sought to develop a progressive Jewish cultural and religious ethos, reflected in its creation of (1984). The process-oriented, “participatory democracy” political culture of NJA complicated its efforts to deal with its infiltration, circa 1987, by the New Alliance Party, whose views were antithetical to those of NJA. The organization also faced hostility from mainstream organized Jewry for its critical view of Israeli foreign policy, ongoing financial difficulties, and the erosion of some of its membership to other, usually single-issue progressive Jewish organizations, and eventually disbanded in 1992. The collection contains national administrative records, including convention, national council and steering council records, including minutes, correspondence, internal bulletins, reports, mailings, membership lists, press releases, some officers’ records (for example, those of Rena Bernards and Anna Jaffe); fundraising, task force and chapter records (including extensive files on the Portland, OR chapter), issues of its national newsletters, , and (published by the Feminist Task Force), and printed ephemera produced by NJA and other progressive (especially Jewish) organizations. The Shalom Seders: Three Haggadahs Agenda Agenda-in-Brief Gesher NOTE: This collection is housed offsite and advance notice is required for use.

41.0 linear feet; (42 boxes)

Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives