LILLY LITSKY has been a Santa Cruz Raging Granny
since we began in 1993. She is also a passionate
worker for peace and justice. Here is her song and her
story, as told to Ruth Mota (see photo)

LILLY
(Tzena, Tzena)

If you’d like to pick a dilly,
We suggest a tiger Lilly
She will melt your hearts.
Jewish mama through and through
She’s sure to see what’s good with you
and fix the other parts.

Lilly, Lilly, queen of all the callers
We all table with delight when Lilly hollers!
Lilly, Lilly, Queen of Civil Rights
and Friend of Unions,
Lilly, Lilly, Lilly!

Dainty as a tulip petal
Lilly’s one to test your mettle
She’s no fragile flower.
Poster child for elbow-grease, she’s
Working every day for peace
And she speaks truth to power!

Chorus

She’s a WILPFer with a cause
To set things right and change the laws
So tyranny will fail.
Amy Goodman’s biggest fan,
She’s doing everything she can
Till human rights prevail.

Chorus

One old broad who’s off the chart, she
Went to jail as Magna Carta
She was sweet sixteen
Told the cops that was her name
And human freedom was her game
Her hope is ever green!

Chorus

LILLY AND MAGNA CARTA
Interviewer: Ruth Gunn Mota

My brother, Moe Fishman, inspired me to become politically active. It was 1936 and I was eighteen when Moe volunteered to fight fascism. He joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a group of nearly three thousand Americans who risked their lives to battle the fascists in Spain even before World War II broke out. I wanted to know why Moe did that. It was dangerous. The fascists were better armed than the Spanish Republican forces were, since Hitler and Mussolini were supplying them with weapons while the U.S. had an embargo on arms shipments to Spain. A thousand of those men in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, most of them from New York, died in battle. Luckily Moe made it back with only a wounded leg; but why was he willing to put his life on the line way over there in Spain? There was no draft. We weren’t even at war. And my parents sure didn’t think it was a good idea.
Before Moe left for Spain my father took a lot of talking to. Even though many people thought that what my brother was doing was heroic, my parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland and they didn’t want us to stand out. My father owned a laundry, and members from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade came to talk to him there while I watched the store. Eventually these fervent men explained the importance of their cause and convinced my father that their son was a hero. It was only then that I began to understand what fascism really meant.
To learn more and get involved, I joined the organization that spoke most to young people and their needs at the time. It was called The American Youth Congress. The Youth Congress had large meetings, like demonstrations. Being as it was the Depression era, we young people were demanding jobs, education and a decent minimum wage. In one of our local political meetings in New York City our group decided to picket a movie called Riff-Raff. It was an anti-labor picture, and “riff-raff” was the label they used for working people. I was very new to all of this, so I hung out with a girl named Sarah who knew the ropes. She was telling me about the people there and the movement. About twenty of us went to picket in front of the movie until the police came with a paddy wagon.
We were ushered into the wagon. The boys were taken to one place, the girls to another. They didn’t have a matron in Long Island City where I lived, so they took the girls all the way down to Brooklyn where they had a matron. As we were being booked, I asked Sarah, “What should I do?” She said, “Watch me. We each get one phone call and we don’t give our right names. Let’s see what happens.” When the officer asked her name, she said, “Sarah Lawrence,” which of course is the name of a college. So when they booked me I said my name was “Magna Carta.” The officer wanted to know how I spelled “Magna.” She had no idea what it was.
All ten of us girls ended up sitting together on the floor of one cell. We wanted to call our parents, but we wanted to call a lawyer too; so one girl decided that her mother would call another mother so that we could save a phone call for a lawyer. When I called my mother and told her I was in jail she was horrified. My parents were so worried about me, but they needn’t have been. We girls sat together all night and sang songs, songs from the Lincoln Brigade, Spanish songs, and lots of union songs: “like a tree standing by the water” and “there once was a union maid.” We had a great time.
Later the American Youth Congress had a big gathering in Washington DC where Eleanor Roosevelt was to speak in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Considering her social background, Mrs. Roosevelt was very supportive of working people and African Americans. I remember when later the Daughters of the American Revolution blocked Marian Anderson, a famous African American singer, from singing in a concert hall, Mrs. Roosevelt had her sing in front of the Lincoln Memorial. There was a tremendous crowd then too. I was eager to attend that Congress in DC with Mrs. Roosevelt. Since I lived in Long Island City, I needed a ride to Washington. I knew that there was a bus from the United Electrical Workers Union going, so I applied to get on that bus. It was February, and very cold. This young man sat down next to me on the bus. He was only wearing a thin jacket and I had this thick raccoon coat, so I shared my coat with him all during the ride. It was a wonderful ride that lasted for sixty-two years since this young man turned out to be Jake Litsky, my future husband.
After we came back from the Congress, Jake and I saw a lot of each other. Then World War II started and Jake was drafted into the army. He was stationed in Kentucky while I went to work for the Ford Instrument Company in New York City making metal parts for airplanes. One day, out the blue, I get this card from him: “Get your blood test. I’m coming on Friday.” That was my marriage proposal. We got married and he shipped out two weeks later, a member of an armored core that fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He came home all right though, and once home we were both committed to activism for peace and justice.
After the war, Jake served as a shop steward with the United Electrical Workers. I worked at an office and became a bookkeeper. We continued to fight for the rights of working people. Jake was often on strike due to unfair wages and I joined him on the picket lines. Although we were eager to start a family, he was adamant that he couldn’t do that until he was assured he could make a decent living. Since he had always wanted to be a printer, he tried to join the printer’s union. The printer’s union books were closed in New York City, so he took up residence with his brother in Washington DC for three months in order to get a union job. Once he was in the union he could get a job with any newspaper. When he returned to New York, the city was so crowded and miserable that we decided to move to California and ended up in the San Fernando Valley in the early 1950s.
When we arrived in California I channeled my political activism through a group called the Emma Lazarus Jewish Women’s Club. Emma Lazarus was a famous poet and essayist who fought to help Jewish immigrants in New York who had been victims of pogroms in Russia. I still have a collection of her poems. The most famous one is Colossus, the beautiful poem inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty. “Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these the homeless tempest-tost to me.” Mostly our work was about anti-Semitism, anti- racism and women’s equality.
The 1950s of course was the McCarthy era, and most people were starting to divest themselves of left-wing organizations out of fear. Since Jake was active in the union and I had been active in the American Youth Congress, which had been labeled a communist organization, I was sure that we were going to be investigated. When we arrived in California I talked to my children, Gaby and Paul. I had to tell them, “Unless you know the person, don’t open the door, and if someone talks to you and interrogates you, just tell them that it’s none of their business.” I imagine that I must have put fear into the kids and we were wrong to do that. But the FBI did come looking for us. Two weeks after we arrived in California, when Jake and I were out, a strange man dressed in a suit and tie came to the door. Gaby, who was only eleven, answered the door and the man began to interrogate her. Did her parents attend any meetings? Questions like that. Because I had warned her about strangers asking questions, she said that she didn’t talk to people she didn’t know, and the man went away. Imagine the nerve of these guys threatening our kids.
When the Viet Nam War came along I participated in many war protests. I joined the Women’s Strike for Peace (WSP), a national group that held demonstrations and teach-ins. The local branch called the Onion Center also offered draft counseling. My son had turned eighteen and we were worried about him being drafted into this unjust war. My son’s draft counselor was Pat Arnold, my friend who later got me involved with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) when I moved to Santa Cruz. It’s surprising how much the Viet Nam War resembles the Iraq War. These countries did nothing to us. It was all lies about the weapons of mass destruction and Iraq’s connection to September 11.th Yet we proceeded to occupy these countries and take their freedom away, all in the name of freedom. The right-wing Republicans and corporations who control the government now want to steal oil rather than pay for it in good faith. The fact that they ask our boys to die for that is something that I cannot stand.
I now protest the Iraq War. I’ve been here in Santa Cruz for over twenty years and active with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) for most of that time. It seemed natural after the holocaust of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to do something against the proliferation of nuclear bombs. In Hiroshima we were the only nation that had ever used a nuclear bomb, and we are threatening all the time to use it again. That’s why smaller nations think that they have to have something to counter our threats. We have 200,000 bombs on alert. No other country has anywhere near that. If we had stayed within the Non Proliferation Treaty, kept our part of the bargain, then maybe other nations would keep theirs.
I joined WILPF’s Nuclear Abolition Committee. Early in the life of this group we decided that one of the ways to tell people about nuclear proliferation was by having a table with petitions to the President, to committees and to members of Congress. We then went to sending postcards because we thought that a barrage of postcards would be more noticed. Our postcards reflect the current issues we research through our WILPF committee and programs: bunker buster and cluster bombs, the dangers of depleted uranium, or Project Prometheus and our weapons in space program. The postcards and handouts give us a chance to educate and involve passersby on what is happening. I table once a month in front of Bookshop Santa Cruz and I sing with the Raging Grannies. My experience is what keeps me alive and kicking and caring about people. I find so many people who do care. Once they know what is happening they sign. Not just people from Santa Cruz, because we’re seen as kind of a kooky city, but people from all over California or even out of state.
At age eighty-seven, I have been through several presidents, many who have tried to help the corporations rule the country. Each time it hasn’t worked. Each time it took awhile, but the people recognized what was happening and came to the conclusion to vote these people out. It’s happened so often that I feel great confidence in the American people. When they know the facts, they are willing to do what is necessary to turn things around. Even now it’s beginning to break down a little bit. People like Bill Moyers are beginning to come out and say the truth, and these people have to be published, because what they say is significant. The truth is that the corporations are using our boys, they’re killing our boys for their vast profits and they’re using our tax money to accomplish this. It’s very important to talk to people. When push comes to shove, most people, when they know the facts, will do something. And there is a freedom of spirit being involved in doing something besides the usual routines of daily life. I am an ordinary person, not a leader, no extraordinary talents, but I think my life, in addition to others like me, can make a difference and has made a difference.

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