Cindy Barukh Milstein (they)

This 4-part workshop looks at Jewish anarchism past and present, and then a contemporary example of putting Jewish anarchist solidarity into practice, and wraps up with a participatory conversation. (See descriptions of each session in the slides.) Feel free to join in one, two, three, or all four of these workshops!

“Peace through Strength” I imagine Orwell turning over in his grave, perhaps incredulous that “Orwellian” feels too soft a term for the brutality of Trump’s linguistic leaps or simply weary that the worst of human history repeats itself. The three words above might be understood as some of the least egregious that Trump has uttered, yet when embedded in his new “United States Counterterrorism Strategy” released this month, they bode a sinister extension of the sadistic power of his storytelling on the world stage. One ignores his fabricated tales at their own peril—and the peril of many, many others. In this newly released document, which to my mind has received far too little attention, Trump’s latest Orwellian assertion is, in essence, that “antifascism is terrorism,” promoted with the uttermost seriousness by a christofascist whose words indeed unleash terror, both outside and within US borders. That “antifascism” includes us anarchists, alongside our pro-transgender ideologies, all labeled a dangerous threat to the “American [Christian] way of life.” As Trump sums up in his introduction to the strategy, “We Will Find You and We Will Kill You.” Yes, it’s hard to read the full “United States Counterterrorism Strategy,” but you should. You should read it because the story that Trump is weaving likely won’t be gathering dust on the bookshelves of his fascist cronies. Nor will Congress or courts, whether Republican or Democrat, be countering, much less trying to rewrite his fantastical tale of supposed domestic enemies—antifascists and anarchists—who in reality want nothing more than self-organized forms of freedom for everyone. His strategy is in all probability already circulating as a “must-read” among many an icy policing agency, eager to implement it. I’d argue that his narrative has already taken hold, as evidenced in the Prairieland verdict (see @dfwsupportcommittee and @free.des.revol ), in which anarchistic acts of care were convicted as domestic terror. But it hasn’t won—not yet, not completely. We must weave other tales—of expansive love, of loving a world without fascism, of anarchism as the beautiful idea, of “strength through solidarity.”

Archaeology of Bread and Ashes [I wrote the following in 2015. But someone just reminded me of it, remarking, “[It] seems even more important in 2026, when much of the left has adopted antisemitism as a badge of honour.”] Rosa Nera squat sits atop a hill overlooking a lighthouse built on ancient stone walls and a harbor’s mouth, which opens wide onto the seaside old town of Chania. One cannot believe the sublime vista, especially the sprinkling green-blue clarity of the water below. It’s no leap at all to see this city on the island of Crete as ripe, or at least right, for a utopic, autonomous community, especially because anarchists hold the key strategic building and best view in town, and have for eleven years now. But this is the archaeology of Europe: today, an anarchist squat in rambling, magnificent, villa-like structure with a two-story, open-air plaza in the center of it; originally constructed in the Ottoman Empire for soldiers and elites; in the basement, during the time of Nazi occupation, after the pitchforks and guns of the Cretons failed to stop the fascist advance, the Gestapo did its work; after the fall of fascism, Communist prison and torture replaced Nazi prison and torture. It seems as if, occasionally, one can hear the ghosts moaning softly, mingling with ocean breeze and seabirds soaring high and low. From the balcony of this most impossibly exquisite of squats, its two red and black flags waving merrily in the wind, one can make out the edges of the ancient city’s old Jewish neighborhood, with a synagogue still standing, all its Jews shipped off to be murdered back in the day when the Gestapo agents probably sat on this same balcony, taking in the same air, but calculating how to vanish that neighborhood efficiently, without trace. But this archaeology of Europe is resistant to disappearance. An anarchist in Chania tells me how deep-seated antisemitism is within the thinking of today’s antiauthoritarians. He bemoans that anarchists still too often critique capitalism as some sort of Jewish conspiracy, to note one of the many examples he provides. He turns to history rather than … [con’t in comments]

I read a book recently (“Pirate Care” on @plutopress , gifted to me by @aundtse ) that highlighted a crucial element of solidarity: vulnerability. Without being vulnerable—without facing or opening oneself up to harm or injury (the Latin noun “vulnus” means “wound”) and taking risks—one stays in the realm of charity, aka upholding the brutal status quo. It doesn’t mean that all who engage in solidarity are equally vulnerable. Rather, we’re side by side in tending to what wounds each other in a world (dis)order that feels one foolhardy fascist move away from destroying us all. Such solidarity is sometimes large—like the @globalsumudflotilla —and often small—like a solidarity kitchen. Yet all shapes and sizes point to a sea change in what’s possible when we stretch vulnerability beyond and against borders. It takes a small risk, of course, to publicly paint a lengthy solidarity banner (pictured here at the top, and reading “Against state repression. Freedom for those in prison. Honor to those we have lost in the struggle,” made for Kyriakos, Marianna, Dimitra, the Sudanese boys [@50outofmany ], and others who can’t safely be named here in Greece) on a grubby sidewalk in Athens outside a squat that’s home to and self-managed by migrants and refugees, and balance on a ladder to hang it high up; to do so in a language that isn’t anyone’s first tongue; to ask consent beforehand from the squat’s assembly and hope the banner’s message resonates in the wounded hearts of those to whom it’s directed; and put up a second banner (left-hand side of photo), made by others, in solidarity with @saveprosfygika and the two hunger strikers there, Aristotelis Chantzis and Suzon Doppagne. But these fascistic days, even words are being deemed illegal. The freedom to move, to house oneself, to forge community, to resist … so much is illegal. We are shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm, in breaking laws aimed at breaking us, breaking solidarity, breaking life. Solidarity is our best—and most tender—weapon.

“You don’t hate Mondays, you hate fascism.” The translated quote above of some Greek-language graffiti here in Athens (thanks to a friend) plays humorously on the now-familiar “You don’t hate Mondays, you hate capitalism.” And both slogans seem self-evidently true, which is maybe why each of them elicits not only recognition but also a smile. Yet somehow, mind-bogglingly as it is, in the US context, for many years or even decades, too many people somehow forgot to hate capitalism even as they’d cheer on films depicting fascism being soundly defeated. It was a “no-brainer” to hate Nazis. Now it feels that fascists of various tendencies have flipped that on its head. In the wholesale abandonment of people’s material lives by a MAGA-sadistic regime and its allies, there’s increasing hatred of capitalism, to the point of modern-day folk heroes rising to the fore because of bold direct actions, even as those same fascist forces have convinced many a person, media outlet, and institution in the States to hate and fear antifascists. Not to put the blame on a mere word, “antifa,” but the importation of that shorthand from a European context, where it was and is legible, to a US one, where many seemed (and perhaps still do) not to be able to understand that it means “antifascism” — well, that didn’t help our cause. So on this Monday, I want to reassert not only a hatred of both capitalism and fascism but also a love for all days in all weeks in a world without capitalism or fascism. Maybe that’s part of the answer, or at least a trajectory, to aid people who can’t hold the truth of that dual hatred in mind: Come play with us anarchic calendar-makers to fill the walls, streets, buildings, forests, rivers, and more with what we love, which might include Mondays, but never, ever capitalists or fascists. (Photo: Large tag spelling out “ANTIFA” on the side of an apartment house in Athens)

May Day joy is extending a bit further this year, thanks to @plutopress putting all of its books on sale, at 50 percent off, through May 14. That includes my edited anthology “Constellations of Care: Anarcha-Feminism in Practice,” full of dozens of stories and many hundreds of voices (if you add up all of those stories!) of how people are putting their queer and transfeminism into messy beautiful practices these days in various contexts and geographies. The collection supplies inspiration, despite the heartbreak of these times and specifically patriarchy, holding out examples of how anarchist(ic) feminism can be much more than a mere slogan; indeed, anarcha-feminism takes social relationships and communally caring forms of social organization seriously as crucial to how we strive toward social transformation. I long for the day when books, like everything else, are free, interwoven with other dreamy forms of freedom. But part of getting us free is, to my mind, the constant imperative to not only #AlwaysCarryABook but also #ReadWriteRebel. You can get a copy of this anthology, but also many other rad and especially anarchist books, such as “Practical Anarchism” (a good companion read!) by my friend @shulibranson .

thrilled to share @cindymilstein 's latest: as always, it is free to download or $0-1 + shipping to have a printed copy mailed to you. “When the pandemic first began and the world suddenly shut down, I saw promise in the ways that many people leaned into anarchistic practices. Sure, I became bleakly depressed because of the mass abandonment of so many of us by, say, capitalism, and narratives about isolation that were twisted by individualism, authoritarianism, and heteronormative ideas of kinship. I hated, for example, the use of the phrase “social distancing” versus what we should have insisted on calling “physical distancing”; we needed each other socially — and even within our own circles, often missed the mark on creatively doing it well. Still, as if mirroring spring’s emergence that year, mutual aid blossomed almost overnight. For instance, an epidemiologist in the city where I was sheltering in place put out word via their social media that they’d be glad to lend whatever pandemic advice they could, from their own research and knowledge, voluntarily and directly, defying the focus on the CDC, White House, and other less-than-trustworthy sources. Across Turtle Island, to point to another illustration, Mutual Aid Disaster Relief and Indigenous Mutual Aid modeled radical ethics and practices for the many liberals who’d dived into do-it-ourselves forms of reciprocity." p.s. thistle image in the background is the public domain image "Titelhoofd met kevers en distels" (1927) by Gerrit Willem Dijsselhof and Scheltema and Holkema

We just had a lovely delivery from Active Press including these powerful reads (slide one) and a pocket book version of Cindy Barukh Milsteins Try Anarchism For Life. A great way to start the week.

For those folks in or near Vienna, join me and other co-organizers for a look at Yiddish/Jewish anarchism, past and present, through the lens of print culture (diasporic, albeit mostly produced in the so-called US): Freie Arbeiter Stimme (Free Voice of Labor) Film Screening and Discussion Friday, April 17, 2026 Film 20:00, Küfa 19.30 Anarchistische Bibliothek Sanettystrasse 1, Vienna The “Fraye Arbeter Shtime” was one of the longest-running anarchist newspapers ever. From 1890 until it shut down in 1977, it was a central place for Yiddish political emancipation and poetry, and an important organ for the Yiddish labor struggle in North America. Read by over 20,000 people at its peak, the “Shtime” wasn’t just a publication; it was an integral part of the Yiddish working-class community. In this 1980 documentary “Free Voice of Labor: The Jewish Anarchists,” historian Paul Avrich talked to the last contributors to and subscribers of the “Shtime” about the history of the newspaper. Following the documentary, there will be a slideshow and discussion of contemporary forms of Jewish anarchist printing. / די פרייע אַרבעטער שטימע איז געווען איינע פון די לענגסט־לויפנדיקע אַנאַרכיסטישע צייטונגען. פון 1890 ביז איר פאַרשליסונג אין 1977 איז זי געווען אַ צענטראַלער אָרט פאַר ייִדישער פּאָליטישער עמאַנציפּאַציע, פּאָעזיע און אַ וויכטיקער אָרגאַן פאַרן ייִדישן אַרבעטער־קאַמף אין צפון־אַמעריקע. געלייענט דורך איבער 20,000 מענטשן אין איר שפּיץ, איז די שטימע נישט געווען נאָר אַ פּובליקאַציע, נאָר אַן אינטעגראַלער טייל פון דער ייִדישער אַרבעטער־קלאַס קהילה. אין זיין דאָקומענטאַר פון 1980, "פרייע אַרבעטער שטימע – די ייִדישע אַנאַרכיסטן", האָט פּאָל אַווריטש גערעדט מיט די לעצטע ביישטייערער און אַבאָנענטן פון דער צייטונג וועגן דער געשיכטע פון די שטימע נאָך דעם דאָקומענטאַר וועט זיין אַ קורצע דיסקוסיע וועגן היינטצייטיקע ייִדישע אַנאַרכיסטישע פּובליקאַציעס. #MendingTheWorldAsJewishAnarchists

At long last, the latest zine in my series related to “everyday antifascism” has sprouted: “Pandemic Care Without States: 12 Prefigurative Practices in Supplying Well-Being from Below.” And as usual, it’s a labor of love, but also a political intervention and, I trust, source of inspiration. Moreover, it’s yours to freely read, print, and distro in both readable and print-ready formats. DM me an email address, and I’ll gladly send you this zine and previous ones in this series. Here’s an excerpt from my intro: “From a grumpy anarchist perspective, it’s disturbing, to say the least, how ‘the fog of mass forgetting’ (as my friend @kit__bla dubs it) has blanketed too many within our own spheres. We anarchists, cultivators of the beautiful idea, should know and do better — far better. Sadly, that so many anarchists have ‘moved on’ has been a profound source of sorrow and rage among those of their fellows — such as the voices within this zine — who still aspire to practice ‘well-being from below.’ Moreover, when COVID-19 first hit, we could and should have been far more imaginative in terms of filling the statist vacuum; such a missed opportunity still eats away at my heart, including in terms of how that gap allowed fascists to leap in, leveraging the pandemic to their own deadly ends. “Yet from an affable anarchist stance — my belief in always illuminating our messy beautiful experiments, meaning what we actually do well, day in and day out — this zine supplies varied glimpses of how anarchists did and are still trying to embody, even if modestly, ‘pandemic care without states.’ The stories spotlight the ways that some anarchists took up the challenge and ran with it, never forgetting — indeed, instead remembering — that love and solidarity are verbs, and our task is to dream up and enact liberatory visions, even if hard or inconvenient.” (Photo: by me while wandering the sunny-springlike streets of Vienna. Thanks to all who sent me pieces, the contributors in this zine, @biglukethomas for the cover art (borrowed from the free graphics at @justseeds ), and my friend Jonathan, who turned my layout+design into a printable PDF.)

I’m wrapping up this #ACAB week of picture-posts (though alas, we’re far from abolishing police, so keep up the spirit on the streets) with an image that connects to my post yesterday, focusing on the joy sparked by #AllCatsAreBeautiful. Who doesn’t love a good cat photo or video, even if the felines in question are just being their purr-fectly disobedient selves without a cop in sight? Because who doesn’t also love a good photo or video of joy-filled mockery being directed at the police? This particular sticker, spotted on the stolen, commodified, and surveilled streets of Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal in summer 2025, celebrates one such moment. It turns a (in)famous photo of a cop right after being doused in pink paint by a protester during a riotous anti-NATO demonstration in that same city in November 2024 into a delightful #AllCanvasesAreBeautiful portrait. Its queerly bright colors, sense of stopping a cop in their tracks with mere paint, and repeated “ACAB” applause can’t help but bring pleasure to passersby. No doubt many of those who saw this sticker fondly remembered that day, whether as participant, or after seeing the original photo in a newspaper or on social media. Thanks to decades of now-multigenerational resistance in Montreal to everything from colonialism to capitalism to cops, and “thanks” to the city dramatically increasing its police budget and its willingness to engage in murder-by-police of late, that pleasure (at the police’s expense) is only exacerbated. Meaning what I appreciate about such public displays of #FTP as this is that they at once bring a needed smile to our faces and serve as DIY historical monuments to our own, hard-won (and sometimes humorously so) victories. All to say, 7 days of #Fuck12 isn’t nearly enough. Yet may it serve as inspiration to keep going, whether organizing with your neighbors to kick cops off your block, to carving out larger autonomous police-no-go zones, to experimenting with ways to keep each other safer without the need of any kinds of police, to abandoning the notion that “peace police” are at all necessary at the next march, to filling up walls with your own creations.

I would never, ever (ever) equate “joy” with “cops.” Exactly the opposite! Yet never say never, right? In scrolling through my thousands of still-unused photos of street art from over many time periods and many geographies—often taken while prowling alleys—it hit me that there is indeed joy in the #AllCatsAreBeautiful genre related to cops. This feline form of #ACAB street art—of which I realized tonight, I have a hefty amount of photos “capturing” kitties who snarl at cops and purr at anarchists—seems to me to point toward the joy of a world without police. In thinking of cats raises a smile of comradely recognition at their ungovernability, for one. But more prefiguratively, it conjures images of playful abandon, abundant cuteness, cuddly tenderness, scrappy inventiveness (oh the things a cat can create from a simple cardboard box!), and lots of other warm-and-fuzzy feelings—the kinds that exude joy, yes, and also aid us in imagining how sweet life should and could be. (Who hasn’t asserted at one point or another, “If I’m reincarnated, I hope I come back as a cat!) Plus cats, contrary to popular perceptions, are loyal and stick side by side with their human friends, thus they would never, ever (ever) talk to the police (they might yowl at them or loudly scratch the door, but refuse to open it, if the cops come knocking). So here’s a small sampler of some street cats, as seen in Pittsburgh, Vienna, and Athens. The world is pretty damn shitty—like the messiest of litter boxes. So it’s worth finding all the tiniest of joys, creeping quietly toward us on cat paws.