Shmate, Revisited
Archived issues of the 1980s magazine that billed itself as ‘a journal of progressive Jewish thought’
June 10, 2022
Editor’s note: This is an incomplete archive of Shmate, an independent, progressive Jewish journal that was edited and published by Steve Fankuchen in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1982 to 1990. Tablet learned about Shmate from Roger Colten, who shared his collection of back issues (addressed erroneously to Roger Colton) with our senior editor Mark Oppenheimer. Colten, the senior collection manager for the anthropology collection at the Yale Peabody Museum, first heard about Shmate in the mid-1980s from his friend and museum colleague Lois Silverman. To maintain legibility and reproduction quality, the PDF files of the issues available for download here are larger than 8 MB but no larger than 21 MB. Click on the issue number to see the complete reproduction.
Volume 1, Issue 1, April/May 1982 • Resistance and the Holocaust by Steve Fankuchen; We Refugees by Hannah Arendt; Portrait of My Father by Paul Zilsel; Report from the West Bank by Milton Viorst; Shmate awards; more.
[Volume 1, Issue 2 missing] Gay and Lesbian Jews • Harvey Milk: Mensch and Martyr; Anti-Semitism in the Women’s Movement; Orthodoxy and the Law of Return.
Volume 1, Issue 3, September/October 1982 • ‘The Jewish Question’ in Library Cataloging by Sanford Berman; Nazi Language Applied to Israel by Andrea Behr; Never Again by Joel Ensana; France: Mixed Feelings by Brucha Gutrajman; more.
Volume 1, Issue 4, January 1982: Focus on Poetry • The Great Betrayal by Florence Lewis; Bundism and Terrorism by Leizer Janklewicz; The Ideology of Despair by Mark Silverberg; My Grandmother’s Name Was Bessie by Maggie Rochlin; Chanukah and Class Struggle by Michael (Ross) Argaman; more.
Volume 1, Issue 5, April 1983: 40th Anniversary Warsaw Ghetto Revolt • Honk, Wonk and Jowl by Florence Lewis; Oral History: Jewish Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade by John Gerassi; The Invisible Passage by Irena Narell; more.
Volume 1, Issue 6, Summer 1983: Jewish Humor • Jewish Humor: An Interpretation by Paul Buhle; The Average Theater Goer by Moshe Nadir; Good as Goldfaden by J. Hoberman; That’s Jewish, You Don’t Look Funny by Henry Sapoznik; Early Jewish Film Stereotypes by Eric Breitbart; The Three Stooges by David Marc; an interview with Wallace Markfield; more.
Volume 2, Issue 7, Chanukah 1983: Nicaragua • The ADL and Reality by Ilana Debara and Paul Glickman; Nicaragua: The ADL and Reagan by Stan Steinreich; New York Street Games by Steve Fankuchen; Food of Love by Gloria Kirchheimer; Jewish Art by Gerre Goodman; more.
Shmate magazine
Volume 2, Issue 8, Pesach 1984: Jewish Identity • Essays on Jewish identity by Meredith Tax, Florence Lewis, Irena Narell, Marian Neudel, Joel Ensana, John Gerassi, Deborah Kaufman, Paul Zilsel, Andrea Behr, Jacob Picheny, Marge Piercy, Sam Julty, Gerre Goodman, Ursula Sherman, William Leffler, Jeff Oboler, Jay Ladin; more.
Volume 2, Issue 9, Summer 1984: Israel • Israel and Bolivia by Burton Levine; Israeli Arms Policy by Burton Levine; Nicaragua Follow-up; French wall posters from 1968; more.
Number 10, Chanukah 1984: Caring • State of the Rag by Steve Fankuchen; Essays on caring by William Leffler, Arlene Goldbard, Florence Lewis, Burton Levine, Gerre Goodman, Marian Neudel, Paul Buhle, A.D. LaFarge; Adoptee Rights by Janine Baer; more.
Number 11-12, Summer 1985: The Right • The Roots of the New Right by Jean Hardisty; The New Right by Lenny Zeskind; Direct Mail Funding by Lee Jaffe; The Far Right by Lenny Zeskind; Civil Liberties by Chip Berlet; Creationism and the Schools by Sanford Berman; Pornography by Anne Finger; Cedartown and the Klan by Lyn Wells; Larouche Inc. by Russ Bellant; more.
Number 13, Fall 1985 • A Congregation Confronts AIDS by Mike Rankin, MD; Dancing on Tisha B’Av by Lev Raphael; Jewish Holidays and the Left by Burton Levine; The Art of Doug Minkler; My Brother’s Baseball Jacket by Ronica Stern; Nicaragua by John Gerassi, more.
Number 14, Winter 1986 • An interview with Julia Vinograd by Dana Sachs; A Raised Conscience Is Not a Yeast Cake by Ronica Stern; an interview with Victor Erlich by Burton Levine; poetry; more.
Number 15, Summer 1986 • Jacob’s Family Reflection by Angela Himsel; Review of ‘Shoah’ by Deborah Kaufman; Summer 1977 by Bob Lamm; The Gambit of Stefan Boyko by Eugene Kaellis; The Big Game Hunter by J. Wagner; What Makes Sandy Run by Kirsten Ban Tepper; more.
Number 16, Fall 1986: The Farm Crisis • Organizing on the Right by Lenny Zeskind; Farm Crisis History and Analysis by Kevin Ristau and Mark Ritchie; Farm Crisis: Jewish Community Response by Frank Hornstein; more.
Illustration from Shmate magazine, issue Number 16Laurel Paley/Shmate
Number 17, Winter 1987: Gypsies/Roma • Gypsies, Jews, and the Holocaust by Ian Hancock; The Death of Zionism by Zev Maghen; Making Jews: A Non-Sexual Approach by Eugene Kaellis; Jews in Prison by William Leffler; more.
Number 18, Summer 1987: Gays, Jews, and the Holocaust • Gypsy/Roma Follow-up by Ian Hancock; Burakumin by Jack Epstein; The Prick by Eugene Kaellis; Astrology: Text and Subtext by Murray Bob; more.
Unsigned illustration in issue Number 18Shmate magazine
Number 19, Winter 1988: Tales From the Crypt • Guilt and the Jewish Right by Burton Levine; The Sighs of Barnet Kasophsky by Richard Grossman; The Song of Auschwitz by Elliot Richman; Ahimsa by Eugene Kaellis; more.
Number 20, Summer 1988, Israel and the Palestinians • An interview with Arthur Hertzberg by Burton Levine; Essays on Israel and the Palestinians by Paul Zilsel, A. Cattimarit, Andrea Barron, Deena Hurwitz; an interview with Noam Chomsky by Burton Levine; more.
Number 21-22, Spring 1989: Pornography • Letter from Noam Chomsky; Home by Richard Grossman; an interview with Nina Hartley by Sheldon Ranz; The Jewish American Princess by Sheldon Ranz; Did You Know Most Male Porn Stars Are Jewish by Daniel Shocket; The Pollard Case by Burton Levine; Of the Land by Allan Katz; Henri Curiel I by Mitchell Abidor; Henry Curiel II by Maxim Ghilan; more.
Number 23, April 1, 1990 • A Farewell Letter from Steve Fankuchen.
Shmate magazine, Number 23, the final issue, April 1990Roger Colten/Shmate
From the editors at Tablet Magazine
