Stanley Aronowitz, a longtime activist and theorist who was a major influence on the labor and civil rights movement, has died at the age of 88.
His daughter Kim O’Connell posted on Facebook about her father’s death on Tuesday after midnight.
“He was the funniest person I have ever met,” wrote O’Connell. “He ran full throttle down the street with me on his shoulders, playing rock and roll on the gas pedal as he drove through the streets of New York, crossing every red light. Whatever he was lacking as a parent at times, he was a true advocate of the people. He has inspired so many for so long and lived his life every second for his convictions. “
cnxps.cmd.push (function () {cnxps ({playerId: ’36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b’}). render (‘4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6’);});
if (window.location.pathname.indexOf (“656089”)! = -1) {document.getElementsByClassName (“divConnatix”)[0].style.display = “none”;} else if (window.location.pathname.indexOf (“/ israel-news /”)! = -1) {document.getElementsByClassName (“divConnatix”)[0].style.display = “none”; var script = document.createElement (‘script’); script.src = “https://player.anyclip.com/anyclip-widget/lre-widget/prod/v1/src/lre.js”; script.setAttribute (‘pubname’, ‘jpostcom’); script.setAttribute (‘Widgetname’, ‘0011r00001lcD1i_12258’); document.getElementsByClassName (‘divAnyClip’)[0].appendChild (script);} Aronowitz, professor of sociology at the City University of New York, has written and co-written dozens of books on labor, class, and social movements, among other things.
Born in New York and raised in the Bronx, he was a union organizer and active in the civil rights movement in the late 1950s and 1960s. He organized union members to take part in the 1963 March on Washington.
He switched to the academy and looked after hundreds of young left-wing thinkers and activists.
Aronowitz occasionally wrote about Jewish history, and in a 2004 book review for the Logos Journal, he appeared to identify most strongly with non-Zionists who advocated a binational state.
He described his own adolescent flirtation with Zionism when he was an outspoken student at New York’s Music and Arts High School in the late 1940s.
“There was a small group of Hashomer members among our classmates,” he said, referring to the socialist Zionist movement. “When I got louder on school matters, they went out of their way to recruit me. I met with their New York guide, attended their camp in New Jersey for several weekends, and read some of their literature, including The National Question of [Ber] Borochov. After that experience, I knew in my bones that I was not a Zionist. Even if I followed up on some of Borochov’s arguments, which were conveyed to me both verbally and textually, and agreed that the European Jews needed a home and viewed the founding of Israel with pride – mainly because of the importance of the two workers’ parties that supported military victory is central – my perspectives, as unformed as they were, were directed towards the American situation. “
In 2007, after being listed as a self-hating Jew on an anonymous right-wing website, Aronowitz told Jewish Currents that he was proud to accept the designation.
“A self-hating Jew is currently defined as a Jew who does not unconditionally follow the dictates of Israeli foreign policy, particularly on the Palestinian issue, and who will criticize the policies of the Israeli and American governments,” he said at the time.
According to Wikipedia, Aronowitz leaves five children. His wife, Ellen Willis, a well-known Jewish feminist and political theorist, died in 2006.
According to the Facebook memorials, Aronowitz had several romantic partners over the years, including many Jewish socialists like him. Depending on who took over the memory, he looked after the women or took advantage of them.
“Stan the man died? He had a knack for finding talented women who could spruce up his career, ”said Susan Brownmiller, the pioneering Jewish feminist theorist, in a comment. “(No, I was never a Stanley enabler, but I sure have hundreds.)”
Another feminist writer, Frances Madeson, replied, “He has also helped a good number of women advance academically and maintain those mentors and friendships for decades.”
Comments are closed.