Joni Rabinowitz

Template:TOCnestleft Joni Rabinowitz graduated from Antioch College and earned a Masters of Social Work from the University of Pittsburgh. She is a board member of the Pennsylvania Hunger Action Center and lives in Park Place with her husband. She is the daughter of the late Victor Rabinowitz and the partner of John Haer.

Life of activism

Joni Rabinowitz was born on July 30, 1941 in Brooklyn, New York. She grew up in New Rochelle, a suburb of New York City. Her father, Victor Rabinowitz, a lawyer, represented trade unions and others whose unpopular ideas made finding legal representation difficult. Although her mother, Marcia Rabinowitz, had advanced education, she remained a home maker and became a community activist who worked to integrate the public schools in New Rochelle.

In 1959 Rabinowitz graduated from New Rochelle High School and entered Antioch College, a liberal arts college located in Yellow Springs, Ohio, that offered “cooperative education programs where students alternate between on-campus study and off-campus work.” Having grown up playing the cello, she entered as a Music major, but by her senior year, she changed her major to Political Science. She was active in various left political causes during her college years, including a period in 1963 when she went to Albany, Georgia, to volunteer for voter registration work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). This was part of her co-op experience at Antioch. While in Georgia, she was arrested three times on the street for vagrancy (charges later dropped), and fasted in jail once for fifteen days and once for nine days. She was also charged with perjury by a federal grand jury and tried along with eight others as the "Albany Nine." Although she was convicted, the 5th Circuit Court eventually reversed the conviction.

In addition to civil rights, Rabinowitz while at Antioch was also active in Fair Play for Cuba (she helped organize a student trip to Cuba at Christmas time 1960), attended the Helsinki Youth Conference in 1961, and worked for peace, free speech and socialism. In 1964, along with over 100 other protestors, Rabinowitz was arrested for demonstrating against a Yellow Springs barber who would not serve African-American patrons. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree at Antioch in 1965.

Rabinowitz completed one year of Social Work school at Adelphi University in New York. During this time, together with students from other social work schools in New York, she worked to support civil rights work in the South. In the summer of 1966, she worked with the California Migrant Ministry in the San Joaquin Valley as a community organizer among Mexican-American farm workers. After this experience, she returned to New York to take a job with the New York City Welfare Department, where she remained until 1969. She was also involved with the local Social Service Employees Union (SSEU), welfare rights, and opposition to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Her SSEU involvement lead to her being arrested three times during a strike in 1968. The SSEU was independent, but eventually merged with District Council 31 of AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers). Rabinowitz was also part of Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS), a local New York "grown up SDS" which had chapters in the welfare department, teachers, city planners and cab drivers.

While providing draft counseling for the union in New York, she met John Haer, who later became her husband. In 1969 they moved to Pittsburgh where his draft board had sent him to do alternative service at Mayview State Hospital, as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War.

In the early 1970s Rabinowitz helped organize a 24 hour telephone hotline for youth, known as the "Switchboard," and wrote for and distributed an underground newspaper, the Pittsburgh Fair Witness. Also during this period she worked with the Gulf Action Project and other groups around the country in anti-corporate campaigns. In 1974 Rabinowitz earned a Masters of Social Work degree in community organizing from the University of Pittsburgh.

In 1971 she was a founding member of the New American Movement (NAM). This nationwide socialist-feminist organization promoted democratic socialism, feminism, economic democracy, anti-racism, labor unions, gay rights, anti-war actions, international solidarity, women's rights, civil rights, and utility reform. It aimed to create a broad movement for American socialism. It also had an extensive education program, both internal and also for the public. Additionally, NAM sponsored cultural events, such as films and folk-singers and groups. In 1973 the Pittsburgh chapter produced a slide show, "Pittsburgh 1902, a People's History" and also created a People's History of Pittsburgh wall calendar for 1973. In 1982 NAM merged with the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) to form the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Rabinowitz was one of the minority of members, nationally, who opposed the merger.

Rabinowitz was a leader in both the local and Industrial Heartland Region organizations of NAM. Between 1971 and 1982, she was off-and-on again a Steering Committee member in the Pittsburgh Chapter, and also attended every annual national convention during those ten years. Along with her husband and several others in the Pittsburgh chapter, she was on the committee which published the NAM Newsletter, a monthly publication beginning in 1972, which was mailed to several hundred interested people. In 1982, after the merger, the name changed to the Allegheny Socialist and was published for several years after that. She was also involved in the Peoples Power Project, a NAM campaign for utility reform, from 1976-1980. In 1974-1975 she worked through NAM on a City Budget Campaign, organized to get Pittsburgh City council to fund more human services.

Between 1979 and 1982, Rabinowitz managed Wobblie Joe's, a small bar on the South Side of Pittsburgh owned by some friends who hoped to bring together the mill-worker culture with the music of Appalachia. The bar had live music every night -- at least two nationally-known figures got their start there: folk singer Anne Feeney and blues singer Ernie Hawkins. Economic problems were the primary cause of the bar's closing in 1982. Rabinowitz and the co-owners also had disagreements with the staff, which were solved by the staff forming a union.

In 1983 Rabinowitz took a job as a public policy advocate for the Hunger Action Coalition. Two years later the organization split and Rabinowitz helped found Just Harvest, an anti-hunger and anti-poverty advocacy organization. She remained as one of two co-directors at Just Harvest until 2010, when she retired. During her 25 years at Just Harvest, she organized on the national, state and local level for public policies which benefit poor and hungry people. These included food stamp policy, school meals, and welfare policies, among others.

Progressive Labor Party

In January 1963, Communist Party USA functionary Henry Winston met with leaders of the East German Socialist Unity Party, the ruling Communist Party of East Germany. Winston provided the East Germans with a list of members of the Progressive Labor Party, the Maoist Communist organization in the United States. Among those he listed were Victor Rabinowitz, New York, Lawyer, and Joni Rabinowitz, student, daughter of Victor Rabinowitz. According to the list in the East German archives it was prepared by Comrade Mille Stand..

Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee

Rabinowitz was a volunteer with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in Georgia during the civil rights movement.

New American Movement

In 1974 Joni Rabinowitz was a member of the Pittsburgh New American Movement.

Attendees at the Expanded National Interim Committee of the New American Movement January 2-4, 1976 in Pittsburgh, PA included;

Roberta Lynch, Anne Farrar, Judy MacLean, Alan Charney, Steve Carlip, Holly Graff, Richard Healey, Mark Mericle, Carollee Sandberg, John Ehrenreich, Bill Leumer, Elayne Rapping

RIC representatives -Ellen Sugg (Port City Chapter, Industrial Heartland Region), Mel Tanzman (Brooklyn Chapter, Northeast Region), Joni Rabinowitz (Pittsburgh Chapter, Industrial Heartland Region), Noel Ignatin (Sojourner Truth Chapter, Midwest Region), Rick Kunnes (Ann Arbor Chapter Industrial Heartland Region), Dorothy Healey ( L.A. #4, Southwest Region), John Judis (East Bay Chapter, Northwest Region), Lee Holstein (Haymarket Chapter, Midwest Region), Laura Burns (Radcliffe/Harvard Chapter, Northeast Region), Dan Marschall (East Bay Chapter, Northwest Region), Glenn Scott (Austin Chapter, Southern Region), Alice Allgaier (St. Louis Chapter, Midwest Region), Dave McBride (Austin, Southern Region), Mark Cohen (Southern Region, Hal Adams ( Iowa City, Midwest Region);

Staff - Dave Ranney

In 1979 the New American Movement published a booklet entitled "Socialist working papers on energy".

Contributors included Joni Rabinowitz who wrote "Organizing for Public Actions".

In 1980 Joni Rabinowitz, Pittsburgh, was a delegate to the December 12-14 Chicago, National Council meeting of the New American Movement.

In 1981, Betty Arenth, John Beverley, Stu Cohen, Paul Garver, Clint Geller, John Hallas, John Haer, Kate Luxemburg, Steve Kraisler, Susan Mead, Ed Meek, Sandy Mitchell, Joni Rabinowitz, Rob Shepherd and Jill Smudski of Pittsburgh NAM congratulated NAM on the occasion of its 10^th anniversary. They commented,

Thanks to NAM for our share in bringing socialist-feminism to the U.S. left

New American Movement 10th convention

In 1981 Joni Rabinowitz, Pitt NAM led a workshop entitled Orientation to NAM and the Convention at the 10th Convention of the New American Movement. The convention was held in a union headquarters in Chicago and ran from July 29 - August 2, 1981.

DSA Conference delegate

In 1983 Joni Rabinowitz was a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania delegate to the Democratic Socialists of America conference in New York City, October 14-16, 1983

DSA Feminist Commission

In 1985 and 1986, Joni Rabinowitz of Pennsylvania was listed as a member of the Feminist Commission of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Just Harvest

Rabinowitz has worked with Just Harvest since its founding in 1986 to the present, leading the public policy advocacy and organizing efforts. She was also the Public Policy Advocate for Hunger Action Coalition for four years prior to Just Harvest’s creation.

References

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