United Jewish Peoples' Order
Encyclopedia
The United Jewish Peoples' Order is a secular socialist Jewish cultural, political and educational fraternal organization in Canada. The UJPO traces its history to 1926 and the founding of the Labour League. It was for many years associated with the Communist Party of Canada
.
. The Toronto branch sponsors several groups operating out of the centre including the Morris Winchevsky School
(kindergarten to grade 7), the Toronto Jewish Folk Choir
, and Camp Naivelt
, an historically significant socialist Jewish camp. The Vancouver branch publishes the national progressive Jewish magazine Outlook as well as a number of cultural and educational activities.http://www.winchevskycentre.org/institutions/A_PBrochure.pdf
According to Professor Gerald Tulchinsky, the UJPO "embraced many Jews, not all of them necessarily committed Communists, who in varying degrees supported collectivist ideals and tried in interesting ways to emulate some of those values in their personal lives. Camp Naivelt
(New World) in Brampton, which also stressed collectivist values and a spirit of internationalism, drew thousands of children over its 78-year existence —it's still going — while many UJPO members rented or owned modest cottages in a colony at Eldorado Park, where for a few weeks they lived a modified communal existence and socialized long into the summer evenings"
The Jewish Folk Choir held well attended concerts, several of which included Paul Robeson
, featuring Yiddish and Hebrew music. Another contribution to music made, indirectly, by the UJPO was the founding of the folk group The Travellers
, which originated at Camp Naivelt
in the 1950s.
, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women
, the Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations, and the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism.
In 2011, the United Jewish Appeal
and Canadian Jewish Congress
severed their relations with UJPO's Winchevsky Centre in Toronto after the organization hosted and co-sponsored an event featuring Auschwitz survivor Hajo Meyer
, a member of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
(IJAN). In a February 3 letter representatives of CJC and the UJA stated that they were severing their relations because the Centre provided "a platform for these views serves to strengthen those who work toward Israel’s destruction," by hosting the meeting.
At its peak in the 1940s and 1950s, the UJPO had more than 2,500 members nation-wide with branches being established in Hamilton and Niagara Falls Ontario, and Calgary, Alberta and Vancouver, British Columbia, among others.
The UJPO was persecuted during the Cold War
. On January 27, 1950, the group's Montreal headquarters was padlocked by police acting under the Quebec government's Padlock Law
which permitted the forced closure of subversive organizations. The police carted away boxes of seized books, files and organizational material. In 1951, the UJPO was expelled from the Canadian Jewish Congress for its Communist affiliations despite being, at the time, the largest Jewish fraternal organization in Canada. The UJPO would not be readmitted into the Canadian Jewish Congress until 1995.
The UJPO broke with the Communist Party (known at the time as the Labour-Progressive Party
) during the party's crisis in 1956 after long-time UJPO and party stalwart J. B. Salsberg
returned from a visit to the Soviet Union and reported his findings of anti-Semitism and suppression of Jewish culture.
A resolution was passed at the UJPO's December 1956 congress stating:
The UJPO provided for its members "a social world outside the increasingly commodified life" according to Ester Reiter
Originally groups of immigrant workers, the UJPO and its precursors provided mutual fraternal assistance, medical help and financial aid to its mostly working class membership as well as providing a "rich cultural and political milieu with shules (schools), choirs, mandolin orchestras and wind orchestras, sports groups, dance and theatre groups, lectures, symposia and panels on social and political events."
In 1959 about one-third of the membership of UJPO left including long-time UJPO leader J.B. Salsberg, feeling that the organization was not critical enough of the Soviet Union, and started a new organization called the "New Fraternal Jewish Association".
The Toronto branch of the UJPO was located for many years at 83 Christie Street in Toronto alongside Christie Pits
. In the years following World War II
the Jewish community moved north along Bathurst Street and so did the UJPO which in 1960 moved to its current location at the Winchevsky Centre located in the Bathurst and Lawrence area.http://www.winchevskycentre.org/welcome/history.html The old Christie Street location is now occupied by the Ukrainian Cultural Centre of Toronto
.
Communist Party of Canada
The Communist Party of Canada is a communist political party in Canada. Although is it currently a minor or small political party without representation in the Federal Parliament or in provincial legislatures, historically the Party has elected representatives in Federal Parliament, Ontario...
.
Overview
The UJPO has branches in Winnipeg, Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto where it operates the Winchevsky Centre, named after famed Jewish socialist Morris WinchevskyMorris Winchevsky
Morris Winchevsky Morris Winchevsky Morris Winchevsky (Leopold Benzion Novokhovitch; Pseudonym: Ben Netz (Hebrew: 'Son of Hawk'; 1856–1932) was a prominent Jewish socialist leader in London and the United States in the late 19th century....
. The Toronto branch sponsors several groups operating out of the centre including the Morris Winchevsky School
Morris Winchevsky School
The Morris Winchevsky School is a supplemental Jewish school in Toronto, Canada. The focus of the curriculum is on strengthening ties to Jewish culture and heritage within a secular humanist framework. Key focuses are Tikkun Olam and social justice...
(kindergarten to grade 7), the Toronto Jewish Folk Choir
Toronto Jewish Folk Choir
The Toronto Jewish Folk Choir is Canada's oldest Jewish choral group. It consists of approximately 30 singers and is conducted by Alexander Veprinsky. Its repertoire, sung in four-part harmony, encompasses a wide range of secular Jewish music, classical works on Jewish themes and songs of many...
, and Camp Naivelt
Camp Naivelt
Camp Naivelt is located in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. It originated as a children's camp, evolved into a family camp and remains in operation as a left-wing, secular Jewish camping community.-Early years:...
, an historically significant socialist Jewish camp. The Vancouver branch publishes the national progressive Jewish magazine Outlook as well as a number of cultural and educational activities.http://www.winchevskycentre.org/institutions/A_PBrochure.pdf
According to Professor Gerald Tulchinsky, the UJPO "embraced many Jews, not all of them necessarily committed Communists, who in varying degrees supported collectivist ideals and tried in interesting ways to emulate some of those values in their personal lives. Camp Naivelt
Camp Naivelt
Camp Naivelt is located in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. It originated as a children's camp, evolved into a family camp and remains in operation as a left-wing, secular Jewish camping community.-Early years:...
(New World) in Brampton, which also stressed collectivist values and a spirit of internationalism, drew thousands of children over its 78-year existence —it's still going — while many UJPO members rented or owned modest cottages in a colony at Eldorado Park, where for a few weeks they lived a modified communal existence and socialized long into the summer evenings"
The Jewish Folk Choir held well attended concerts, several of which included Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
, featuring Yiddish and Hebrew music. Another contribution to music made, indirectly, by the UJPO was the founding of the folk group The Travellers
The Travellers (band)
For other meanings of the term see The Travellers For the American folk trio see Travelers 3The Travellers were a Canadian folk singing group which formed in the summer of 1953...
, which originated at Camp Naivelt
Camp Naivelt
Camp Naivelt is located in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. It originated as a children's camp, evolved into a family camp and remains in operation as a left-wing, secular Jewish camping community.-Early years:...
in the 1950s.
Affiliations
Nationally, the UJPO is affiliated to the Canadian Peace AllianceCanadian Peace Alliance
The Canadian Peace Alliance / L'Alliance canadienne pour la paix is a Canadian umbrella peace organization claiming more than 140 member groups...
, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women
National Action Committee on the Status of Women
The National Action Committee on the Status of Women is a Canadian feminist activist organization. NAC was founded in 1971 as a pressure group to lobby for the implementation of the 167 recommendations made in the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada's 1970 report on matters such as...
, the Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations, and the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism.
In 2011, the United Jewish Appeal
United Jewish Appeal
The United Jewish Appeal was a Jewish philanthropic umbrella organization that existed from its creation in 1949 until it was folded into the United Jewish Communities, which was formed from the 1999 merger of United Jewish Appeal , Council of Jewish Federations and United Israel Appeal, Inc.In...
and Canadian Jewish Congress
Canadian Jewish Congress
The Canadian Jewish Congress was one of the main lobby groups for the Jewish community in the country, although it often competed with the more conservative B'nai Brith Canada in that regard. At its dissolution, the president of the CJC was Mark Freiman. Its past co-presidents were Sylvain Abitbol...
severed their relations with UJPO's Winchevsky Centre in Toronto after the organization hosted and co-sponsored an event featuring Auschwitz survivor Hajo Meyer
Hajo Meyer
Hajo Meyer is a German-Dutch physicist and Jewish political activist.Born in Bielefeld, in 1938 Meyer fled from Nazi Germany to the Netherlands alone, without his parents. He went into hiding in 1943, but was arrested after a year and spent ten months in Auschwitz...
, a member of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network is a network of anti-Zionist Jews pledged to "Oppose Zionism and the State of Israel".- Advocacy and activity :The IJAN views Zionism as a racist movement, and Israel as an apartheid state...
(IJAN). In a February 3 letter representatives of CJC and the UJA stated that they were severing their relations because the Centre provided "a platform for these views serves to strengthen those who work toward Israel’s destruction," by hosting the meeting.
History
The UJPO evolved out of the Yiddish language Arbeiter Ring. In 1925 Communist and other radical members of the Ring were expelled and formed the Jewish Labour League Mutual Benefit Society (or Labour League) in Toronto and the Canadian Workers' Circle in Montreal and Winnipeg. In 1945 these organizations merged to form the UJPO.At its peak in the 1940s and 1950s, the UJPO had more than 2,500 members nation-wide with branches being established in Hamilton and Niagara Falls Ontario, and Calgary, Alberta and Vancouver, British Columbia, among others.
The UJPO was persecuted during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. On January 27, 1950, the group's Montreal headquarters was padlocked by police acting under the Quebec government's Padlock Law
Padlock Law
The Padlock Law The Padlock Law (officially called "Act to protect the Province Against Communistic Propaganda") The Padlock Law (officially called "Act to protect the Province Against Communistic Propaganda") (QcFr: "La loi du cadenas" / "Loi protégeant la province contre la propagande...
which permitted the forced closure of subversive organizations. The police carted away boxes of seized books, files and organizational material. In 1951, the UJPO was expelled from the Canadian Jewish Congress for its Communist affiliations despite being, at the time, the largest Jewish fraternal organization in Canada. The UJPO would not be readmitted into the Canadian Jewish Congress until 1995.
The UJPO broke with the Communist Party (known at the time as the Labour-Progressive Party
Labour-Progressive Party
For the Labour-Progressive Coalition Government in New Zealand see the Fifth Labour Government of New ZealandThe Labor-Progressive Party was the legal political organization of the Communist Party of Canada between 1943 and 1959....
) during the party's crisis in 1956 after long-time UJPO and party stalwart J. B. Salsberg
J. B. Salsberg
Joseph Baruch Salsberg was a Canadian politician, long time Communist and activist in the Jewish community.-Early life:...
returned from a visit to the Soviet Union and reported his findings of anti-Semitism and suppression of Jewish culture.
A resolution was passed at the UJPO's December 1956 congress stating:
-
- For many years we accepted uncritically all developments in the Soviet Union. This was wrong. There were members who questioned the sudden disappearance of Jewish writers and cultural institutions. Their questioning was rejected and dismissed without justification. Developments and events in the Soviet Union, shall be examined and our attitude to them determined on the basis of full, free discussion in the organization
The UJPO provided for its members "a social world outside the increasingly commodified life" according to Ester Reiter
Originally groups of immigrant workers, the UJPO and its precursors provided mutual fraternal assistance, medical help and financial aid to its mostly working class membership as well as providing a "rich cultural and political milieu with shules (schools), choirs, mandolin orchestras and wind orchestras, sports groups, dance and theatre groups, lectures, symposia and panels on social and political events."
In 1959 about one-third of the membership of UJPO left including long-time UJPO leader J.B. Salsberg, feeling that the organization was not critical enough of the Soviet Union, and started a new organization called the "New Fraternal Jewish Association".
The Toronto branch of the UJPO was located for many years at 83 Christie Street in Toronto alongside Christie Pits
Christie Pits
Christie Pits Park, originally Willowvale Park, is a Toronto public recreational area located at 750 Bloor Street West at Christie Street, just west from the TTC Christie subway station...
. In the years following World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
the Jewish community moved north along Bathurst Street and so did the UJPO which in 1960 moved to its current location at the Winchevsky Centre located in the Bathurst and Lawrence area.http://www.winchevskycentre.org/welcome/history.html The old Christie Street location is now occupied by the Ukrainian Cultural Centre of Toronto
Ukrainian Cultural Centre of Toronto
The Ukrainian Cultural Centre of Toronto is located at and has been the host of many Ukrainian events. "Christie", as the building has been dubbed, has been the heart of the Ukrainian community in the Greater Toronto Area, bringing together people with a common culture and important ideas...
.
See also
- Organization for Jewish Colonisation in the Soviet Union (IKOR)Organization for Jewish Colonisation in the Soviet UnionThe Organization for Jewish Colonization in Russia , commonly known by its transliterated acronym of ICOR, was a Communist-sponsored mass organization in North America devoted to supporting settlement in the Jewish socialist republic of Birobidzhan in the Soviet Union...
- Jewish People's Fraternal Order (US equivalent of UJPO)
- Association of United Ukrainian CanadiansAssociation of United Ukrainian CanadiansThe Association of United Ukrainian Canadians is a national cultural-educational non-profit organization established for Ukrainians in Canada...
- Federation of Russian CanadiansFederation of Russian CanadiansThe Federation of Russian Canadians is a left-leaning cultural organization for Russian immigrants to Canada and their descendants.It is the successor of the Russian Farmer-Worker Clubs which were closed by the government at the beginning of World War II as a suspected subversive organization due...
External links
- United Jewish People's Order website
- The Winchevsky Centre - Toronto
- Jewish Dissent in Canada: The United Jewish People's Order By Ester Reiter and Roz Usiskin