Zionism and Palestine

A[kiva] Orr

Van Nuys: Srafprint Co-Op, 1971. 7 x 8 ½ in. Saddle stapled in wraps. 7 pp.

A short essay by Aki Orr (1931-2013), the Israeli writer and activist, and outspoken anti-Zionist.

Orr, born in Germany in 1931, grew up in British-controlled Palestine after his parents fled the rising Nazi regime when he was just three years old. As a young man in the merchant marines, he participated in the 1951 Israeli Seamen’s Strike, during which he was beaten by the police. Radicalized, Orr joined the Israeli Communist Party (“Maki”) and wrote his first public indictment of the Israeli government, criticizing the 1956 Suez War and invasion of Egypt as a war of colonialism backed by Britain and France.

When he wrote this essay, he had left the Maki and joined the Israeli Socialist Organization (“Matzpen”), though by the time it was published in 1971, he was living in London, had become close friends with C.L.R James, Rudi Dotschke, and Rosa Meyer Levine, and was an avowed libertarian socialist. He spent the rest of his life writing and lecturing in support of direct self-governance and against political Zionism.

Srafprint Co-Op was one of the printing operations of the Social Revolutionary Anarchist Federation, a loose organization founded by Jim Bumpas, which included the Living Theatre, the Bayou La Rose, the Reich Study Group, and the 'Horse and Goat People.' The organization’s bulletin, SRAFBULL, was edited for a time by Franklin Rosemont.

Two copies on OCLC as of March 2021. Printed by the Union Shop of I.W.W. 450. Stamped on rear wrap with an updated mailing address for the Srafprint Co-Op. Mild toning commensurate with age; otherwise, near fine.