,

"They would crowd into the apartment
and would stand shoulder to shoulder,
and the sheriff's deputies could not get
in to evict the families
Harriete Nesin Bressack, whose
father was a founding member of the
Communist Party, accompanied her
mother on these anti-eviction actions.
"I remember yelling at the policemen:'
says Bressack in the film. "They laughed
and said we came from little Moscow"
The Coops were also at the fore-
front of breaking racial barriers.
Coops residents organized to save the
Scottsboro Boys, nine young black
men and boys who, in 1931, were
accused in Scottsboro, Ala., of raping
two white women, fellow train-hop-
pers, in a railway car. And in the early
'30s, the Communist Party directed the
Coops' management to invite African-
American families to move in. As a
result, it became one of the first inte-
grated housing complexes in the nation
— and home to some of the only black
kids in America to speak Yiddish.
But fealty to the Communist Party
and the resultant ideological purity had
its down side. In 1943, with World War
II having revived the economy, laws
preventing foreclosure were abandoned
and the Coops were again faced with
foreclosure. The only way out was for
Coops residents to agree to a monthly

rent increase of $1 per room. Amid
fierce arguments, they held a meeting to
decide their fate.
"They voted at that meeting to not
pay the dollar-a-month increase:' says
Rosenblum. `And one of the arguments
was that since we were the leaders of
the community, that if the Coops people
voted to increase their rent, all the other
landlords would say,`Hey the Coops
raised their rent so therefore we can
raise your rent?"
The community lost the deeds to
their buildings, and the BX Corporation
became the new owners. Yet through
the 1950s, the radical spirit that built
the Coops continued with the tenants'
association that dealt with the new
owners.
Of the four original cooperative hous-
ing projects built by Jewish radicals in
the Bronx, the only one to flourish was
the Amalgamated Cooperative, which is
now home to 1,500 families, including
some former residents of the Coops.
Yet the ideal that inspired the original
Coops founders, the belief that the com-
mon good trumps private gain, survives
through their children and grandchil-
dren, many of whom remain active in
the progressive movement today. Li

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Joel Bleifuss is the editor of In These Times,

where this article originally appeared.

David D,Chiera. General Director

From Haven To Home from page B13

"The JHSM has assembled and pro-
tected historical materials, and we are
glad to reach out with our holdings to
the Jewish community and the general
community,' says Arnold Collens, co-

Special Events

• The Jewish Historical Society
of Michigan hosts A Faculty
Symposium: Jewish Life in
America at 10:30 a.m. Sunday,
May 17, featuring Deborah Dash
Moore, Huetwell professor of
history and director of the Frankel
Center for Judaic Studies at the
University of Michigan; Kenneth
Waltzer, professor of history
at James Madison College and
director of the Jewish Studies
Program at Michigan State
University; and David Weinberg,
professor of history and director
of the Cohn-Haddow Center for
Judaic Studies at Wayne State
University. $18. (248) 432-5517;
www.michjewishhistory.org .

president of the JHSM.
"We want to make people aware of
what Jewry has accomplished and con-
tributed."

• The Detroit Historical Society
hosts a Curator Talk with Judy
Levin Cantor at 6 p.m. Thursday,
June 11. Free for members of the
Detroit Historical Society; $20
nonmembers. (313) 833-7934.
• The Detroit Historical Society
hosts an Author Talk with Barry
Stiefel, writer of The Jewish
Community of Metro Detroit,
1945-2005, at 6 p.m. Wednesday,
June 17. Free for members of the
Detroit Historical Society; $10
nonmembers. (313) 833-7934.
• Jewish Historical Society
of Michigan has helped plan
additional group programs,
including three different bus
tours of Jewish Detroit and lunch
events. (248) 432-5517; www.
michjewishhistory.org .

— Compiled by Suzanne Chessler

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