Lenni Brenner

Brenner was born into an Orthodox Jewish family in 1937.[1] He developed an interest in history from reading Hendrik Willem van Loon's The Story of Mankind which his brother had received as a bar mitzvah present.[2][3] He became an atheist at age 10 or 12[4] and a Marxist at age 15.[4] Brenner's involvement with the Civil Rights Movement began when he met James Farmer of the Congress of Racial Equality, later the organizer of the Freedom Rides of the early 1960s. He also worked with Bayard Rustin, later the organizer of Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Brenner was arrested three times during civil rights sit-ins in the San Francisco Bay Area. He spent 39 months in jail when a court revoked his probation for marijuana possession, because of his activities during the Berkeley Free Speech Movement at the University of California in 1964.

He was an anti-war activist from the first days of the Vietnam War, speaking frequently at rallies in the Bay Area. In 1963 he organized the Committee for Narcotic Reform in Berkeley. In 1968 he co-founded the National Association for Irish Justice, the American affiliate of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.

In the 1990s, he and Kwame Ture (aka Stokely Carmichael), the legendary "Black Power" leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, co-founded the Committee against Zionism and Racism. They also published The Anti-War Activist.

In 2003, Brenner spoke at the inaugural meeting of Jews Against Zionism[5] with his colleagues Alice Coy, Haim Bresheeth and Roland Rance who presented Brenner's book, 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis.

Brenner spoke at an Israeli Apartheid Week event in 2011 at Berlin, Connecticut. According to the Anti-Defamation League, at an event called "One State Solution" at the Islamic Association of Greater Hartford, Brenner said that Jews were the largest donors to American political parties and that the Political system is as "crooked as a dog's hind leg". He also asserted that President Truman recognised Israel because of contributions from Jews.[6]

His books have been widely translated, and have been reviewed in 11 languages. His books have been reviewed by the London Times, the London Review of Books, Booklist magazine, and the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.[7]

His articles have also appeared in publications related to the Middle East and identifying with the political left, including The Nation, Amsterdam News,[8] Jewish Guardian, Atlanta Constitution, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Middle East Policy, Middle East International, Journal of Palestine Studies, New Statesman, Al-Fajr and United Irishman. His book Zionism in the Age of the Dictators was prominently praised by British socialist politician Ken Livingstone in defence of comments he made about Adolf Hitler which were widely considered antisemitic, helping to spark a 2016-20 controversy about Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party.[9]

His work has also gained attention on the far right, including from the Holocaust denial platform, the Institute for Historical Review.[9] Brenner has opposed his work being used by those on the far right, and those engaged in Holocaust denial.[9] Because of his work in the area, antisemitism scholar Kenneth S. Stern has described Brenner as antisemitic.[10]

Brenner has authored, co-authored and edited a number of books:

• Zionism in the Age of the Dictators – which argued that many Zionist leaders collaborated with fascism, particularly Nazi Germany in order to build up the Jewish presence in Palestine. First printed in 1983, reprinted in 2014. It has been translated into Japanese: Fuashizumu jidai no shionizumu, by Shiba Kensuke (芝健介), Hosei Daigaku 2001, German (in a revised edition), as Zionismus und Faschismus : über die unheimliche Zusammenarbeit von Zionisten und Faschisten, tr. Verena Gajewski Homilius, Kai, Berlin 2007, and Spanish as Sionismo y Fascismo, by Luis César Bou, Bósforo Libros, Madrid,2010.[11][7]
• The Iron Wall: Zionist Revisionism from Jabotinsky to Shamir,[12] first published in 1984 by Zed Books, London.
• Jews in America Today
• The Lesser Evil (1988) – a study of the United States Democratic Party
• 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis (2002) Barricade Books - This book has been translated to Spanish by Luis César Bou as 51 Documentos Sobre la Colaboración Sionista con los Nazis Editorial Canaán, Buenos Aires, 2012. – translations of many of the documents quoted in Zionism in the Age of the Dictators and The Iron Wall
• Jefferson & Madison On Separation of Church and State: Writings on Religion and Secularism[13]
• Black Liberation and Palestine Solidarity (2013)[14] – a collection of selected essays that "discusses the historical response of African American freedom movements to the colonial settler state of Israel and its role in American Imperialism in the Middle East."

<Dan Falcone, Lenni Brenner: An Interview on Palestine Solidarity, Black Liberation and Anti-Zionism,' Truthout 18 October 2014./>

• Interview with Lenni Brenner by JK Fowler for The Mantle March 19, 2011