Red Emma’s

First published in Yiddish in 1944 by Ben Gold, the president of the Furriers Union, this working-class, coming-of-age novel traces the family origin, immigration, and radicalization of an everyman named Avreml Broide. Mirroring Gold's own life, Avreml's story begins entangled in a complex intergenerational social and criminal community in Bessarabia just after the turn of the twentieth century. Personal dramas drive a young Avreml to New York City in his young adult years, where he finds a job in the fur industry and devotes himself entirely to his union, party, and the fight against fascism, often to the detriment of his personal life and relationships. Through strikes, dissidence, and finally on the front lines of the Spanish Civil War, Avreml's journey presents the fascinating ambiguity of subsuming the self in service to party discipline.

With bold and stimulating illustrations by William Gropper, Annie Sommer Kaufman's translation brings Gold's emotionally rich narrative forward to reveal some of the most dramatic conflicts in America's suppressed Communist history. This novel offers a powerful counternarrative to histories and narratives of Jewish immigration that emphasize materialist American dreams and upward class mobility. YOUR COMRADE, AVREML BROIDE offers an enticing mix of fact and fiction to demonstrate the personal risks, revolutionary dreams, and heartaches of Yiddish-speaking American Communists.

Annie Sommer Kaufman is a Chicago organizer who builds antizionist Jewish community by teaching Yiddish and Talmud, and as a member-leader of Jewish Voice for Peace. She worked for a decade in the fashion industry as a pattern maker. As a founding member of Red Emma's bookstore in Baltimore, she was active in the Industrial Workers of the World.

Kevin Wheeler is a labor and community organizer in the Baltimore and DC metro area. He was a Salt (volunteer organizer) with UNITE HERE Local 7, and has worked for multiple unions including SEIU 32BJ, AFT-MD, FCFT and SEIU 500. He is a founding member of Necessary Means, a mutual aid and community organizing collective, and was one of the first volunteers at Tubman House, under Eddie Conway. He resides in his hometown of Baltimore, Md with his cat Solo.