Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz Z’L, American writer, and political activist for racial and Jewish women’s rights

Though the content of our mission is not specifically feminist, we have modeled feminist activism… – Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz

Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, an activist, active since the early 1960s civil rights movement in Harlem died Monday from Parkinson’s disease, her partner, Leslie Cagan, wrote on Facebook. She was 73.

Born Melanie Kaye in 1945 in Brooklyn, New York, her parents had anglicized their last name from Kantrowitz prior to her birth. Her grandparents emigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe, Poland and Russia. She later added Kantrowitz to her name to honor her Jewish roots. Kaye/Kantrowitz was active in the Harlem Civil Rights Movement as a teenager. When she was 17, she worked with the Harlem Education Project. About this she says “It was my first experience with a mobilizing proud community and with the possibilities of collective action.”

She associated her activism with her Jewish upbringing, stating that it was related to her family’s Jewish cultural and political heritage “as much as the candles we lit for Hanukkah, or the Seders where bread and matzoh shared the table.” She wrote in her essay, “To Be a Radical Jew in the Late 20th Century” that her “parents had not pushed [her] into activism, yet clearly they raised [her] to do these things”.

In 1966, Kaye/Kantrowitz left New York to attend graduate school in Berkeley, California. Later, she moved to Portland, Oregon, where she remained until 1979 before spending several years in New Mexico.

Kaye/Kantrowitz described herself as a “Conscious Jew”.

Along with Nancy Bereano, Evelyn T. Beck, Bernice Mennis, Irena Klepfisz and Adrienne Rich, Kaye/Kantrowitz was a member of Di Vilde Chayes (English: The Wild Beasts), a Jewish feminist group that examined and responded to political issues in the Middle East, as well as to antisemitism.

In 1990, she acted as a founding director for Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), a progressive Jewish organization focused mostly on anti-racist work and issues of economic justice. Kaye/Kantrowitz served on the JFREJ board from 1995 to 2004.[10] Of her work with JFREJ, Kaye/Kantrowitz said: “Though the content of our mission is not specifically feminist, we have modeled feminist activism and included a feminist spin on issues such as hate violence, right of workers to organize, police brutality, and educational equity.”

Around 1990, she also co-founded Beyond the Pale: The Progressive Jewish Radio Hour, a radio program that aired weekly on WBAI (99.5 FM) which “mixes local, national, and international political debate and analysis, from a progressive Jewish perspective with the voices and sounds of contemporary Jewish culture”.

Kaye/Kantrowitz also served on the steering committee of New Jewish Agenda.

“She was a brilliant feminist poet, essayist, and lesbian activist who fought tirelessly against racism & antisemitism,” JFREJ wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday. “She sparked our collective, radical imagination and opened our minds to an expanse of possibilities.”
“As a friend, as a co-worker, as a teacher, as a writer — an incredible writer — as a sister and comrade and co-conspirator in the struggle for justice and peace, Melanie’s presence was often soft but always strong,” Cagan wrote. “Her moral compass was always set in the right direction, and she always had the courage to speak out, to take action, and to bring others along with her.”