Politicsניקולה ג'ברא

Jabra Nicola

Jabra Nicola was a Palestinian Arab Israeli Trotskyist leader and writer who translated Marxist classics into Arabic.

1912 to 1974Trotskyist leadershipTranslating Marxist classics into ArabicMembership in Matzpen

Born: 16 February 1912, Jaffa
Died: 25 December 1974, London
Occupation: politician
Party: Palestine Communist Party, Matzpen

Jabra Nicola was born in 1912 in Jaffa

Jabra Nicola was born in Jaffa on 16 February 1912. During World War I his family moved to Haifa.

As a young man he joined the Palestine Communist Party and was in charge of its paper al-Ittihad. When the party split along nationalist lines in 1939, he joined neither side. The British held him in prison from 1940 to 1942.

After his release, Yigael Gluckstein, later known as Tony Cliff, brought him into a small Trotskyist group. When that group fell apart in the late 1940s, he went back to the Communist Party and worked on its publications. After 1962 he joined the new left group Matzpen.

In 1963 he was elected to the International Executive Committee of the Fourth International, writing articles and pamphlets for it. With Moshé Machover he wrote essays on revolution in the Arab East in 1972 and 1973.

He was put under house arrest in 1967 after the Six-Day War and moved to London in 1970. He lived with activist Aliza Novik, and they had 3 children. He died in his London home on 25 December 1974 after a long illness.