13 Facts About Naomi Jaffe

Naomi Esther Jaffe was born on June 1943 and is a former undergraduate student of Herbert Marcuse and member of the Weather Underground Organization.

Naomi Jaffe was born in upstate New York on a small family farm run by her Jewish parents.

Naomi Jaffe's father, Abe Jaffe, was a poultry farmer and her mother, Sadie Bakst Jaffe, was an elementary school teacher.

In 1969, as a member and leading feminist of the SDS, Naomi Jaffe traveled with a group of people to Hanoi to talk to Vietnamese students and others about the US antiwar movement.

In 1969, the SDS was heading in a more radical direction and Naomi Jaffe became one of the founding members of the Weatherman Organization, yet never became a leader.

Naomi Jaffe joined the Weather Underground because the group believed in the self-determination of African American people; that they should have a revolution of their own without the total involvement of white middle class people.

Naomi Jaffe joined because the group was radically anti-racist and anti-imperialist.

In 1970, Naomi Jaffe was indicted in Detroit, Michigan, for her participation in the 1969 War Council held in Flint, Michigan, the final public meeting of the Weatherman-controlled SDS before the dissolution of the SDS in January 1970.

Naomi Jaffe found it necessary to cut her beloved long hair which she had been growing since childhood; she cut ties with her tight-knit family because it was what she needed to do to become a revolutionary.

Around 1975, while living on the East Coast, Naomi Jaffe expressed concerns about the direction the group was taking: because of her feminist background she most likely wanted them to refocus on women's issues, and this led to her becoming estranged from the group.

Naomi Jaffe was living on her own and not in a collective, so when she showed up to a planned meeting and no one else showed, she realized she was out.

Today Naomi Jaffe is a mother of one son and lives in Albany, New York, with her life partner.

Naomi Jaffe was prominently featured in the 2002 documentary film The Weather Underground.