Annette Rubinstein, 1910-2007

Annette Rubinstein 1910-2007

Annette T. Rubinstein died on June 20 at 97.

The left and progressive forces in the U.S. and around the world have been greatly diminished by her death.

A memorial will be held on Sunday, September 23, 2:00-5:00pm
At the Brecht Forum.
All are invited.

An active socialist for 75 years, Annette was the author of innumerable articles in Science & Society, Monthly Review, Mainstream and Jewish Currents, among others. She wrote the standard progressive introduction to English literature, The Great Tradition: From Shakespeare to Shaw as well as American Literature: Root and Flower, an invaluable overview of that country's literary history. Both emphasize the massive, but officially hidden, presence of the literature of resistance to oppression at the heart of the history and development of modern English language and literature.

In recent years when she was in the country Annette did most of her speaking in classes at the Brecht Forum (New York Marxist School) where she taught since it opened its doors in the Fall of 1975 and continued to teach classes on literature, drama and politics until her last class on Brecht's Galileo this Spring.

In her last public appearance, on the occasion of her 97th birthday in April, Annette returned to the topic of the literature of resistance in her talk and gathered her strength to do an effective public reading in Shelley’s The Mask of Anarchy.

In the 1940s she founded and led the Robert Louis Stevenson school, an innovative primary and secondary school in New York, and during World War II served on Mayor LaGuardia's commission on the status of children in wartime. She was an unsuccessful candidate for congress on the American Labor Party (ALP) ticket in a district on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and also served as state vice chair of the ALP. In 1958 she ran for Lieutenant Governor of New York State as an Independent Socialist candidate. Annette took the 5th amendment when asked by Senator Joseph R. McCarthy if she were a member of the Communist party. McCarthy replied that she was the most charming communist who had sat before his committee, to which she responded, "Aren't you jumping to conclusions, Senator."

Rubinstein was a key adviser to radical New York congressman Vito Marcantonio throughout his career. On his death she edited I Vote My Conscience: Speeches and Writings of Vito Marcantonio 1935-1950.

She also taught widely and was a visiting professor at universities in Eastern Europe and China. Despite her many intellectual and organizational contributions to a global community of activists and left intellectuals, notably at New York City's Brecht Forum, and to Science & Society, Monthly Review and many other publications, she was most proud of her activism. She played an important role in the struggle against racial and class oppression in the New York public schools and would speak anywhere, from street corners to Madison Square Garden.

(I have adapted this from John Bellamy Foster's obituary for Annette at Monthly Review.org)