Jules Rabin

Jules Rabin (born Yehuda Moishe Rabinovitz; April 6, 1924) is an American peace activist, writer, educator, and baker. He is known for his practice of nonviolent resistance during major protest movements spanning more than six decades including protests in favor of reducing and eliminating nuclear weapons, protests in favor of the civil rights movement, and protests in opposition to the Vietnam War. In the late 1960s, he moved from New York City to rural Vermont as part of the back-to-the-land movement. He taught at Goddard College for nine years.

After leaving Goddard, he and his wife Helen started Upland Bakers, an artisan baker of sourdough bread which is credited with contributing to the renaissance of European-style hearth bread in the United States. In subsequent decades, he has been a noticeable presence in the state capitol of Vermont, protesting in opposition to the Iraq War. He has advocated on behalf of the Palestinians for more than two decades, and has actively participated in public protests in opposition to the Gaza war.

Early life and education

Yehuda Moishe Rabinovitz was born on April 6, 1924, and grew up in Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, as the youngest of five children. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Lithuania .

Rabin attended the Boston Latin School before going on to Harvard. After his first semester, he joined the United States Army. He initially began working on his undergraduate thesis at Harvard but soon "got tired of it" and gave up on it, graduating cum laude instead. He shortened his name to Rabin soon after. which later released a short documentary film about the movement titled The Walk (1962), for which Rabin received credit. Rabin eventually joined the movement himself. The attempt at citizen diplomacy was widely covered by most major media outlets. The Associated Press reported that Rabin and other peace activists had tea with Nina Kukharchuk-Khrushcheva, the First Lady of the Soviet Union, in Moscow, in October 1961. The group discussed disarmament, and asked the First Lady to consider setting a good example for other nations by disarming their weapons. She politely declined.

Upon his return, he documented his experience in an essay for Liberation magazine in November 1961 titled "How We Went". In the essay, Rabin describes the peace walk with mixed results. They were able to reach people in many countries, but the ideological barrier with the Soviets was impenetrable. "We proposed that they undertake unilateral disarmament and that in the spirit of individual responsibility, each Soviet citizen who regarded war as intrinsically evil should on his own initiative abstain from all phases of military activity, including civilian labor in armaments industry." In response, the peace delegation was laughed at by the Russians. "The Soviets", writes Rabin, "are determined to maintain their position of military strength—in defense, as they habitually allege, of the peace and of their territorial integrity—as long as their appeal for complete and general disarmament, multilaterally implemented, goes unheeded...As persons affected by the Gandhian and Christian traditions of nonviolence, we Peace Walkers found this disharmony of the Soviet position harsh to our ears. How can one simultaneously protest that one loves peace and avow implacable hatred and annihilation of a prospective enemy?" That same year, Jules and Helen were first arrested together as a couple while protesting against discriminatory hiring at the New York World's Fair.

By 1965, Rabin was working at the Village Peace Center and collaborating with writers like Grace Paley. Rabin's first hand accounts of the 1966 anti-Vietnam War marches in New York City was covered by Liberation magazine and WIN Peace & Freedom Through Nonviolent Action in the United States and in the pacifist magazine Peace News in Britain. He notes the increasing theatricality and use of large, oversized puppets by Peter and Elka Schumann with their Bread and Puppet Theater in the anti-war protests beginning in late 1965. Coverage by Peace News refers to the "carnival"-like atmosphere, an idea that would later become known as tactical frivolity. Just before the Summer of Love the next year, Rabin observes the mood of the crowd compared to his 1961 peace walk, speaking to what he perceived as the "gospel of love that walked with us in the clear autumn sun". Rabin also mentions that he carried his child [Hannah] on his shoulders during the protest, and that she enjoyed herself due to the float-like spectacle of the protest-turned-parade. The signatures appeared in the New York Post on January 30 of that year, with Rabin's name listed between writer Thomas Pynchon and mathematical psychologist Anatol Rapoport. The Federal Bureau of Investigation took notice and created a case file on the protest. At some point, Rabin began supporting RESIST, a group that was formed to provide grants to grassroots activist organizations involved in the anti-war movement, but records indicate he was inactive by 1976.

Goddard College (1968—1977)

In 1968, Rabin and his wife Helen moved from New York City to Marshfield, Vermont, In Vermont, he taught anthropology at Goddard College in the small town of Plainfield, for nine years. Among one of Rabin's notable students at Goddard was playwright David Mamet.

With the backdrop of the 1973 oil crisis looming large, "They didn't speak of bread as holy, but they treated it as a holy object", Rabin remembered. now had two children. They built a New England style farmhouse for their growing family in 1975. They also built their own stone wood-fired oven from 75 tons of fieldstone based on the one they saw in 1971. At the time, an engineer provided them with a drawing schematic of the original French oven. To make ends meet, they decided to sell bread from the oven that they built. In 1978, after building a small bakery behind their house and buying a mixer, they were licensed by the authorities and Upland Bakers was born.

Their bread is made only from flour, salt, water, and a sourdough starter;

The Rabins ran their business lean and simple, keeping costs down with no rent to pay for a storefront and without selling at retail. In addition, market demand for their product was higher than what they could supply. Many of their neighbors helped to deliver the product to stores saving them money on delivery.

Iraq War, Gaza War (2002—present)

During the Iraq War, Rabin started a weekly peace vigil outside of the Montpelier Federal Building which he continued for nine years. His peace vigil was featured on the January 20, 2006, "Down by the Riverside" program on Montpelier community access television. Rabin marked his 100th birthday on April 6, 2024. To celebrate, he asked his friends to join in a protest of the Gaza war in downtown Montpelier. He has advocated on behalf of the Palestinians for more than two decades.

Personal life Rabin has identified as an atheist since at least the early 1960s. Rabin grew up speaking Yiddish with his family, but does not read Hebrew and does not involve himself in issues directly related to the Jewish community. He was able to do 50 push-ups a day until he was 95. At 100 years of age, he was only able to do 10. His wife Helen is an artist who is active with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and is a member of the Raging Grannies. Nessa is a union baker and pastry chef.