By Peter Rachleff
At the East Side Freedom Library, our mission is “to inspire solidarity, work for justice, and advocate for equity for all.” We understand this not only as a guidepost by which to navigate our organization and its work, but as watchwords by which we strive to live our lives. As our friend Paul Wellstone understood so well, the fundamental challenge is not merely to announce our allegiance to these words but to “walk the talk” in our actions. We know that this is not easy, not by a long shot, and we admire, respect, and honor those among us who provide models of how to do this. Of all the people we know, have collaborated with, have looked to for guidance, Vic Rosenthal is at the top of the list. He has indeed been a mensch for our times.
Vic passed away the night of March 27th, surrounded by those who love him. The East Side Freedom Library wants to proclaim, publicly, our love and respect for Vic. We want the diverse members of our community to hear some elements of Vic’s history and to incorporate his efforts to make our world better into our construction of our own map to guide us through our life journeys.
I am honored to have been asked by my ESFL family members to write this appreciation of Vic’s journey. My thinking has been colored by another recent loss, the passing in late November of scholar-activist Staughton Lynd. One of Staughton’s great contributions was to introduce the concept of “accompaniment” into progressive discourse.** By accompaniment he meant a political relationship not of leadership but of sharing a journey together. As I thought about Staughton’s vision, I have chosen to organize this appreciation of Vic’s contributions to those occasions when we accompanied each other and diverse community members on specific journeys for solidarity, justice, and equity. My experience of these journeys was enriched by sharing them with Vic, and I hope that sharing these stories with you will not only enrich your appreciation of Vic’s life and work, but will also solidify your own journeys and quest for accompaniment.
In the summer of 2008, as Executive Director of Jewish Community Action, Vic led the formation of a coalition to challenge the treatment of undocumented immigrant workers by employers and U.S. government immigration authorities. These authorities had raided our country’s largest Kosher meatpacking plant, Agriprocessors, in Postville, Iowa, arresting some 400 Guatemalan and Mexican immigrants and detaining them in animal stalls at the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo. As a history professor at Macalester College with an abiding interest in workers’ experiences, rights, and struggles, and as a secular Jew who identified with my people’s history, I was drawn to Vic’s vision as I became aware of it. Vic worked inside and outside the Jewish community, organizing within synagogues and temples and among secular Jews, while also reaching out to people in other faith communities and traditions. He urged us all to identify our beliefs and values, share them with each other, and explore how personal, social, and political behaviors and institutions could embody these beliefs and values. Diverse ways of embodying these beliefs and values — consumer boycotts, worker-led unions, government regulations — were explored, discussed, and advocated for. Vic’s vision included speaking from pulpits to religious congregations, marching and protesting on the streets in our communities, and traveling by bus to Postville, where we carried signs, distributed leaflets, and engaged in conversation with people from all walks of life. His vision also included using each bus as a mobile classroom, and so the bus ride from St. Paul to Postville served also a site of learning and discussion. Many of us, including this tenured professor, served not only as teachers on the buses but also as students.
When we returned to St. Paul, we accompanied Vic in the pursuit of a thorny issue — that the historic Jewish rules about what constituted “Kosher” included how the animals should be treated with nary a word about how the workers should be treated. Vic, his JCA colleagues, and others in the coalition, challenged the religious leaders of the local Jewish community, from Reform to Orthodox rabbis, to reflect on the consequences of this oversight and commit themselves to transform centuries-old standards.
We failed in this quest — Kosher rules remain silent about the treatment of workers and 400 immigrant workers were imprisoned and then deported. The consequences of our failure have been further revealed in the past three years, as working conditions in meatpacking plants remained conducive to the transmission of COVID, and unscrupulous employers have employed underage children, often the children of economically desperate immigrant families. But we — all of us in the coalition, inspired and accompanied by Vic — established a model of commitment, of ecumenical and intersectional organizing, of listening as well as speaking, of accompaniment. The East Side Freedom Library has been informed by these experiences, values, and practices from our very founding in 2014.
Twenty-one years ago, Vic and his colleagues at Jewish Community Action co-founded a new tradition — the “Freedom Seder.” Seeking to connect the history of Passover (the holiday which celebrates the emancipation of enslaved Jews in Egypt) to current struggles for social justice, the Freedom Seders brought together people of diverse backgrounds and traditions to commit themselves to their shared quest for collective liberation. These seders also served to introduce non-Jews — Christians, Muslims, atheists, workers, immigrants, and more — to Jewish history, language, foodways — and to flesh and blood Jewish people right here in St. Paul. These community gatherings quickly became a way to move beyond language to walking the talk and organizing solidarity. Since our founding in 2014, ESFL has been a sponsor (among many other organizations) of the Freedom Seder. We have been honored to accompany Vic on this journey.
Since stepping down as Executive Director of JCA, Vic has demonstrated that he doesn’t know the meaning of “retirement” any better than some of the rest of us (ahem). Vic knows that once you have committed yourself to the quest for solidarity, justice, and equity, you continue to accompany others as you walk the talk. While Vic’s contributions helped lay the foundations for contemporary activism, he continued to make contributions to new projects. I have been fortunate to accompany Vic as he made contributions to two local projects — the multiracial and multicultural organization of elders committed to justice, and the development of a city-funded project to provide reparations to the descendants of chattel slavery. Both of these projects, which are still in the early stages of development, bear Vic’s fingerprints all over them.
Just a year ago, Vic sought — and received — the accompaniment of elders in a project to build their power to address inequities among elders across races, identities, genders, and citizenship status. “Elders from diverse backgrounds are becoming more aware of the importance of working together to build power,” Vic wrote in his initial call for the founding of All Elders United for Justice. Typically, he cast himself as “the facilitator,” rather than the leader, or president, or executive director. This new organization recognized that elders not only have lots of wisdom, but that they/we also have a lot to learn. All Elders United for Justice therefore included internal education on contemporary issues, such as the historical roles played by elders in social justice movements, and the ways to use voting and other forms of political expression. Its vision also included strategies to gain access to other organizations, from religious congregations and unions to issue-oriented organizations, especially those led by youthful activists. AEUFJ centered story-telling as the lifeblood of meetings in which elders sought to better understand their peers from other backgrounds while also being better understood themselves. The ESFL family resonated with AEUFJ’s understanding that story-telling breaks down barriers that have been created by racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and ageism. Like much of our work, this project was built on the awareness that both society and individuals (including us!) are works-in-progress. Vic understood that, above all, we contribute to our own transformation while we work to transform our society and community.
In the past three years, Saint Paul residents have educated themselves and their neighbors about the concept of reparations — to construct projects to make amends for the consequences of slavery and institutional racism, their long-term impact on African Americans, especially the descendants of chattel slaves. Vic participated in the St. Paul Recovery Act Reading Group, which partnered with the East Side Freedom Library to convene a reading and discussion session once a month. Participants studied American history: the arrival of the first enslaved people in 1619; the role of slavery in the development of the American economy in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries; the role of enslaved people in their own emancipation during the Civil War; the rise and fall of African American empowerment during and after Reconstruction; the contours and outcomes of African American migration to the cities of the North; the participation of African American workers in the formation of the new industrial union movement in the 1930s and 1940s; the emergence, impact, and containment of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s; the impact of deindustrialization on African American workers and their families; and the issue of police violence towards African Americans and the emergence of Black Lives Matter. The group also discussed local manifestations of institutionalized racism, such as the destruction of the Rondo community by the construction of I-94, and read about other local level projects to implement reparations, such as Evanston, Illinois, and Asheville, North Carolina. Vic’s work provided historical evidence that was crucial in informing reparations discussions at the Saint Paul City Council. Earlier this year, the Council voted unanimously to establish the St. Paul Recovery Act Community Reparations Commission. It is to be a permanent body charged with advising the City Council. Their focus will be on policy and budgeting decisions to address the damage done to African Americans and the building of a foundation of equity from which to build a better future for all of us. Vic accompanied his fellow reading group members in a process of self-education which can lead to the wider education of our community. Residents of other cities will be studying St. Paul as they enter into conversations about issues of historical racism and possible reparations.
It has been an honor and a pleasure to be able to accompany Vic in these and other projects. His influence, on me, on other individuals, and on organizations like the East Side Freedom Library has not only supported our success but has helped us to grow and mature, while remembering, as 1930s Jewish labor activist Jake Cooper once said to me: “Never put the period to anybody. We are all unfinished projects.” Thank you, Vic, for helping me — and many others — learn and embody this insight as we strive to transform our society.
*According to the Sydney Jewish Museum a mensch lives his/her/their life with the awareness that kindness, humility, intgrity and personal responsibility can have on the world — small acts that can make a better society, one person at a time.
** Staughton Lynd, ACCOMPANYING: PATHWAYS TO SOCIAL CHANGE (PM Press, 2012)