Here Where We Live Is Our Country

Molly Crabapple is a time traveller, a necromancer and an unclassifiable genius. She beckons readers through a portal to an irresistible, lost world, one bound together by passion, solidarity, and a burning hunger for justice. Here Where We Live Is Our Country is that rarest of books: a gripping, human story of love, idealism and betrayal - and an immense, rigorous contribution to the historical record. Reading it feels revolutionary – NAOMI KLEINVast in scope, elegiac in prose, this book brings to life the profound humanity of those who stood up to the blood soaked ethno-nationalisms that led to so many of the twentieth century’s storied horrors. All the while, Crabapple never lets us forget that they were also fighting for a world that would not give rise to such evil. This book is many things: an ode to the grand legacy of anti-Zionist Jewishness; a profound reflection on whether history has morals; and an essential resource for anti-fascist history, concepts and tools. Molly Crabapple, with this great work, adds to her growing legacy as a unique American genius – JASON STANLEY, author of How Fascism WorksMolly Crabapple not only recounts, with a novelist’s mastery of detail, one of the most extraordinary rebellions of the human spirit in modern history. She animates, too, elegantly and boldly, a political and spiritual tradition that the zealots of ethnonationalism had managed to suppress for too long. In the long battles ahead for truth and dignity, her book will be an indispensable resource – PANKAJ MISHRAA remarkable book. With vivid scenes and lively characters, Molly Crabapple brings to life the marginalized and oftentimes forgotten history of the Bund. In pages that read like a novel, Crabapple immerses us in questions of identity, nationalism, internationalism, class, and intersectionality which undermined past revolutions and which continue to haunt our contemporary struggles. With the brilliance of a scholar and the creativity of an artist, Crabapple delves into personal and communal histories, intimately reconstructing the genealogy of a rebellion for dignity and justice, and in the process, gifting us nothing short of a roadmap for our revolution today – TAREQ BACONIMolly Crabapple’s words are as glorious as her colours, her writing as vivid as her painting … A reminder that in even in the most dehumanizing of times a loving humanity might endure, even if only fleetingly – GREG GRANDINHere is Where We Live is Our Country is a captivating and meticulously researched story of family, community, and solidarity. Molly Crabapple takes us through decades of forgotten memories to rediscover an essential part of Jewish history and a revolutionary movement whose organization and ideals are more relevant than ever, and which may yet point the way towards a better future – MIKE DUNCAN, New York Times-bestselling host of Revolutions podcastAt a time when racism and xenophobia are being institutionalized in the United States and once again sweeping Europe, Here Where We Live Is Our Country should give succour to those seeking inspiration for their own forms of resistance today. Molly Crabapple is a masterful storyteller who possesses an admirable sense of history and writes with verve and wit. In this book, she tells not only the fascinating, long neglected story of the socialist fighters of the Jewish Bund - but also those of Zionism, Soviet communism, fascism, the plague of antisemitism - and explains how it has all fuelled the unfinished duels of the present day. Remarkable for its historical sweep as well as its timeliness, Here Where We Live Is Our Country is a true tour de force – JON LEE ANDERSON, author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary LifePraise for Molly Crabapple: Crabapple is a new model for this century’s young woman * NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW *A revelatory and necessary read – ANGELA DAVISA book of startling emotional power and intellectual depth – PANKAJ MISHRAMolly detects the bright and beautiful as well as she does the dark and fearful in the world not just because her eye is keen, but also because her eyes are so wide open * BUZZFEED BOOKS *Blazingly honest and unafraid to offer up something real to chew on * PAPER *Molly Crabapple’s pen is a scalpel, and she’s not afraid to turn the blade on herself. Beautifully excruciating – PATTON OSWALTMolly Crabapple could be this generation’s Charles Bukowski. She’s a great artist whose life is also a work of art – MATT TAIBBI

Molly Crabapple is an artist and writer. She is the co-author of Brothers of the Gun, an illustrated collaboration with Syrian war journalist Marwan Hisham, which was a New York Times Notable Book and longlisted for the 2018 National Book Award. Her memoir, Drawing Blood, received global praise and attention. Her animated films have been nominated for five Emmys and won an Edward R. Murrow Award, and her live-illustrated journalism has included collaborations with Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Jay Z, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and The ACLU. Crabapple’s reportage has been published in the New York Times, New York Review of Books, Paris Review, Vanity Fair, Guardian, New Yorker and Rolling Stone. She has been awarded multiple fellowships and won the Bernhardt Labor Journalism Award in 2022.