By Anne Levin

Four historians will explore the connections of Princeton native Paul Robeson to the Jewish community, left-wing political movements, and the Soviet Union in the 1940s at a special program Sunday, October 6, at Rutgers University’s Douglass Student Center in New Brunswick.

“Paul Robeson: ‘Negro-Jewish Unity,’ and the ‘Jewish People’s Movement’ in the 1940s: Legacy and Challenges” is the title of the program co-sponsored by the Paul Robeson Centennial Celebration at Rutgers. Robeson graduated from the University in 1919.

“Paul Robeson had a very important connection to the Jewish community,” said Nancy Sinkoff, associate professor of Jewish Studies and History, and academic director of the Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life at the University. Sinkoff organized the event. “He was an iconic figure of interracial activism.”

According to a statement about the program, “Robeson, a Communist, was active in building a popular anti-fascist movement among Jews and an alliance between American Jews and African Americans. He contributed to this effort through his songs in Yiddish and Hebrew and his endorsement of Jewish causes, including support for the modern state of Israel. Robeson’s defense of the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, the subjugation of Eastern Europe, and the crushing of Soviet Jewish culture challenges the legacy of his commitment to universal human rights.”

Sinkoff commented that the challenge of Robeson’s history “is studying and thinking about the complexity — the way he was an icon and a great supporter of Jews in the diaspora, and an advocate for the working class, and a hero — but the experience of Jews in the Soviet Union is different. To what degree did he understand what was going on in Europe under Stalinism? That’s the challenge.”

Robeson was known for singing songs in Yiddish. “Yiddish was an important part of his repertoire,” said Sinkoff. “He clearly felt moved by the Yiddish language, yet he sang in all kinds of languages.”

Moderating the event is David Greenberg, a professor of history and of journalism and media studies at Rutgers. On the panel: Tony Michels, a professor of American Jewish History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an the author of A Fire in Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York; Ron Radosh, professor emeritus of history at CUNY and the author of many books including Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left; and Jennifer Young, a former director of education for the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and a writer on Jewish culture whose works have been published in The Jerusalem Post and Time.com.

The panel discussion will be held at 4 p.m. in the Douglass Student Center, Trayes Hall, 100 George Street. Register by September 27 at https://bildnercenter.rutgers.edu/rsvp-paul-robeson.