Salud y Shalom: Conversations with Jewish Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade

Jewish volunteers made up almost one-third of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (ALB) during the Spanish Civil War. Most belonged to a Communist Party focused on the antifascist goals of the Popular Front and faithful to the internationalist idea of erasing ethnicity, including Jewish ethnicity.

Joseph Butwin’s oral history presents conversations with ten Jewish veterans of the ALB. Recorded from 1992-94 in the wake of European communism’s collapse, the interviews explore the milieus that formed...