Your Comrade, Avreml Broide: A Worker's Life Story

by Ben Gold, Annie Kaufman (translator), William Gropper (illustrator)

Written in 1944 by Ben Gold, the president of the Communist 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.

Genres: Fiction, Jewish, Judaism

154 pages, Paperback

Published November 12, 2024

Reviews

[yankl krakovsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Annie Sommer Kaufman's deft translation & truly fantastic introduction reinvigorate Ben Gold's 1944 didactic novel as a valuable piece of political literature for the contemporary reader. The book is worthwhile for the translator's introduction alone, a captivating, expertly researched treatment of Ben Gold's life of immigration, union activism, and fierce struggle for the working class amidst capitalist repression and devastating party & union infighting. Gold's novel is compelling on its own merits, but perhaps more interesting and inspiring as a literary artifact of its particular historical & political moment.

[maydha · Rating 5 out of 5]

every battle you seek to fight, you already have as a different person in history who took on your same attitude, struggles, and history. everything old becomes new again.

the translator should take the authors marxist leninist jewish values at face value and instead of doing the boring liberal hand wringing of “what about stalin” at length at the beginning.

[Nate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a fascinating example of a 1930s-40s morality tale from a leading member of the Communist Party USA at the time. Even more interesting is the way the shtetl from which Avreml originates is depicted by the author and the stories within it. It's a quick read, too, with a very straightforward narrative style.

The translator's introduction is a fascinating analysis and the book is worth it for the introduction alone, as it ties in a rich tapestry of American and World History from the standpoint of the left nearly a hundred years later.

Gropper's illustrations are evocative and it's wonderful to see these historic illustrations in publication again.

I'm grateful that this artifact of the Yiddish-speaking left has been made available to English readers. It evokes a powerful feeling of connection with my forbears.

[Rachel Brustein · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a wonderful work of translated historical fiction that deepened my understanding of the rifts on the Jewish left in the early 20th Century. The Pale of Settlement vs NYC contrast is remarkable, and I loved learning about the labor union history.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

there are many critiques I have of the way the original story from ben gold was written and paced. the translation however, and the act of reading his work in the here and now with the lens that Annie Kaufman provides was extremely insightful, serving both as a warning and as inspiration.

[Skye · Rating 5 out of 5]

This translation is remarkable! Fiesty, smart, and accomplished. A pleasure to read this slim historical novel.

[Koby Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

a true party man, that comrade broide