Mike Tabor

Title

Mike Tabor

Description

Activist, Organic Farmer, JUJ Founder

Creator

Post-Holocaust American Judaism Collections

Date

2015

Contributor

Moshe Kornfield, Scott Meyer, Elias Sacks, Stephanie Yuhas, Andrew Violet, Jane Thaler

Rights

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Format

Portable Document Format

Language

English

Text

Michael Tabor (b. 1942) is an activist, organic farmer, and the founder of Jews for Urban Justice (JUJ). Tabor grew up in a working class Jewish family in New York City. After high school, he earned a B.A. from the State University of New York in Oneonta, where he became heavily involved in countercultural activism. Tabor began doctoral work at the University of Maryland in 1963 and was shocked to discover that Jim Crow segregation was still active in the area where the university was located. Turning away from academia, Tabor focused on organizing and activism in support of civil rights and of the United Farm Workers grape strike, and against the Vietnam War. In 1965, Tabor founded the Action Coordinating Committee to End Segregation in the Suburbs (ACCESS), a group dedicated to ending residential segregation in the D.C. area. Noticing that nearly all of the segregationist landlords were Jewish, Tabor and a number of fellow activists turned their attention to organizing within the Jewish community, a move that ultimately led, in 1968, to the founding of Jews for Urban Justice. Tabor led JUJ until its dissolution in 1972. One of the outgrowths of JUJ was a farming cooperative called Kibbutz Micah. While the farm did not succeed as a collective social project, Tabor and his wife, Esther Siegel, continue to operate the farm, now called Licking Creek Bend Farm. Mike Tabor ACTIVIST ORGANIC FARMER JUJ FOUNDER

Files

Citation

Post-Holocaust American Judaism Collections, “Mike Tabor,” IJL Digital Exhibits, accessed March 28, 2024, https://embodiedjudaism.omeka.net/items/show/22.