Israel Amter

Israel Amter was born in Denver in 1881 and studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, with pianist listed as his occupation.[2] The reviewed sources do not give details of his childhood, family, or dates of musical study. They also do not explain when or why he moved from music into Communist Party organization, so that transition cannot be reconstructed from this record.

Amter was a founder and national-committee member of the American Communist Party. The American Jewish Archives also identifies him as a party candidate and says he was imprisoned, but it does not specify the election, charges, or date.[2] Jewish participation formed an important part of the party’s early leadership: Jews were disproportionately represented in Communist Party leadership, although Communists remained a minority among American Jews.[4]

The Library of Congress finding aid catalogs thirteen items in Box 2, Folder 9 under “Amter, Israel, 1933–1941.” They include “A Labor Party for New York Workers” (1935), the 46-page “Social Security in a Soviet America” (August 1935), “The March Against Hunger” (c. 1933), and “Why the Workers’ Unemployment Insurance Bill? How Can It Be Won?” (November 1933). A separate entry lists “Dollars for Democracy” by Charles Krumbein and Israel Amter for the New York State Communist Party, with an uncertain 1936 date.[1]

Campaign literature in the collection records “Vote for Israel Amter, Communist Candidate for Congressman-at-Large” from 1938 and “An American Accepts! Program for Victory!” from 1942, described as his acceptance speech as a Communist candidate for governor. A 1944 pamphlet is titled “Let’s Fight Together: A Message to You from Israel Amter.”[1] Together, the inventory documents his use of pamphlets in labor, policy, and electoral organizing.

In a March 11, 2026 Mosaic discussion, Harvey Klehr placed Amter’s statement in the mid-1930s Popular Front period, when he said the American Communist Party softened its position on Zionism. Klehr said Amter wrote in the party’s theoretical magazine, “A good Communist can also be a good Jew and even a good Zionist.”[3]

The transcript does not identify the theoretical magazine, essay title, or publication date, and no primary text appears in the reviewed sources. The quotation should therefore be treated as Klehr’s attribution rather than as independently verified from Amter’s original publication.[3]

Amter died in November 1954.[2] The Library of Congress Radical Pamphlet Collection preserves a concentrated record of his political writing during the 1930s and early 1940s. Its holdings connect his name to unemployment insurance, social security, labor unity, May Day, New York labor-party politics, and a gubernatorial acceptance speech.[1]

These materials, together with the American Jewish Archives entry, document the two central aspects of his public record: national Communist Party leadership and the production of campaign and policy pamphlets.[1][2] The available sources are much less detailed about his personal life, imprisonment, and the chronology of his political career.

The Library of Congress and American Jewish Archives use “Amter.”[1][2] Mosaic also uses “Amter,” while My Jewish Learning lists “Israel Amster” among Jewish Communist leaders.[3][4] None of the reviewed sources explains the spelling difference. The title form follows the biographical and archival sources.