How a Century of Jewish Labor Organizing Powers Today’s May Day Resistance

This May Day, the spirit of Jewish labor organizing from over a century ago is alive and urgent. The Jewish Labor Bund, founded in 1897, forged a movement based on doikayt — the belief that liberation begins where you stand. When Bundists immigrated to the United States, they became key players in the American labor movement, building power in their communities and fighting exploitation on the factory floor and beyond.

Ann Toback, CEO of The Workers Circle, traces this lineage to today’s struggles. The Workers Circle, born from Bundist roots in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, continues to organize immigrant and working-class communities in coalition with groups fighting for democracy and immigrant rights. Their activism is a direct response to the Trump administration’s assault on democratic institutions and the expansion of ICE’s for-profit detention centers, where thousands endure inhumane conditions and rising deaths.

The billionaire class and their political enablers deploy a familiar playbook: crush workers, sow division, and erode democratic protections to stay in power. The Bund knew this tactic well, and so do today’s activists. May Day was never just a holiday — it was a declaration of worker power and solidarity. Toback reminds us that celebration itself is resistance, a way to build community and strength amid relentless attacks.

With over 250,000 activists marching nationwide, the Workers Circle and its allies reclaim May Day as a moment of defiance and hope. Their banner, “a shenere un besere velt far ale” — a better and more beautiful world for all — is more than a slogan. It’s a promise rooted in a legacy of struggle that refuses to be broken, no matter the repression.

This May Day, as authoritarianism rises and ICE’s cruelty grows, we march because the fight demands it. We stand on the shoulders of those who organized before us, carrying forward their courage and solidarity to win democracy back, one struggle at a time.