18 Facts About Leah Feldman

Leah Feldman, known as Leah Downes, was an Odesa-born anarchist garment worker who for most of her adult life was based in London, England.

Leah Feldman was born to a Yiddish-speaking Jewish family in Odesa in September 1898.

The family moved to Warsaw, Poland, while Leah Feldman was still young and she joined a socialist club when she was 12.

In 1913 Leah Feldman moved to England with some relatives, against her mother's wishes, where she began work as a furrier and first encountered the anarchist movement.

Leah Feldman read Peter Kropotkin's pamphlet An Appeal to the Young and began attending a sunday school at the Jubilee Street Anarchist Club.

Leah Feldman took part in the Yiddish language trade unionism that was active in East London.

The first world war prevented Leah Feldman from rejoining her family in Warsaw.

In May 1917, like many Russian and Eastern European Jewish anarchists in Britain, Leah Feldman moved to Russia to take part in the Russian revolution.

Leah Feldman met Kropotkin in Russia, and in May 1921 attended his funeral in Moscow.

Leah Feldman travelled to Ukraine to take part in the Makhnovist movement, working as a seamstress during the civil war.

Leah Feldman had at first been denied entry to the UK, finding herself stateless, so in 1931 she married a British ex-serviceman to gain British citizenship.

Leah Feldman continued to work as a garment worker but found the anarchist movement in London depressing and in retreat.

Leah Feldman lived in Palestine for four years in the 1930s, returning to London in 1936 where she was active in supporting the anarchist movement in the Spanish revolution.

Leah Feldman helped push for the decision for the Freedom Press group to use the group's remaining assets to support the new newspaper Spain and the World.

Leah Feldman was, alongside Lilian Wolfe, a regular street seller of the anarchist newspaper Freedom for many decades.

Leah Feldman was active in campaigns relating to the Angry Brigade, the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, Anarchist Black Cross campaigns for anarchist dissidents in Francoist Spain, and the anti-nuclear marches of the 1960s.

Leah Feldman was registered blind after her eyesight was damaged in a bomb blast, which had been worsened by an accident in surgery.

Leah Feldman died in London on 3 January 1993 at the age of 94.