Misplaced Pages

#851148

19-723: The Morris Winchevsky School and the Winchevsky Centre are affiliated with the United Jewish Peoples' Order which sponsors a number of progressive secular Jewish institutions such as Camp Naivelt and the Toronto Jewish Folk Choir . It is run by Education Director Lia Tarachansky and the Shule Advisory Committee. The Winchevsky School was originally located in the Christie and Bloor area. It then moved to

38-776: A former organizer for the Labor-Progressive Party (as the Communist Party of Canada was known), became active in the UJPO and was elected National Secretary in 1964, a position he would hold until 1986. During the crisis resulting from the release of the Secret Speech in 1956, prominent Party member J. B. Salsberg returned from a trip to the Soviet Union , where he found rampant Party-sponsored antisemitism and suppression of Jewish culture . Salsberg's findings were rejected by

57-678: A network of secular schools in the US and Canada, called Folkshulen . In 1931 the Farband Yugnt Clubs, their youth wing, joined with Young Poale Zion to form the Young Poale Zion Alliance as the official youth wing of the entire Labor Zionist movement in America. The Los Angeles branch published Chaim Grade , including the Yiddish originals of The Agunah and The Yeshiva . In 1971,

76-649: A wide range of issues including labour and refugee rights; anti-racism and allyship; LGBTQ rights and opposition to homophobia and transphobia; aboriginal land rights and indigenous justice; Black Lives Matter ; opposition to the Israeli "occupation" and bombing of Gaza; the campaigns to prevent the prosecution and extradition of Canadian academic Hassan Diab ; and numerous campaigns against Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. The organization's Indigenous Solidarity Working Group has been active in reaching out to local Indigenous groups to promote Settler-Indigenous Solidarity. Continuing

95-666: Is a Jewish cultural, political and educational fraternal organization in Canada . It is secular and socialist . The UJPO traces its history to the founding of the Jewish Labour League Mutual Benefit Society in 1926. After the Russian Revolution and the creation of the Communist Party , divisions within the Arbeiter Ring became increasingly bitter. In Toronto, the pro- Bolshevik women withdrew from

114-586: The Communist Party (then known as the Labour-Progressive Party) and led to his suspension from its leading bodies. Ultimately, the crisis resulted in the departure from the Communist Party of the UJPO, Salsberg, Robert Laxer and many of the Party's Jewish members in 1956. In 1959 about one third of the UJPO's membership (including long-time leader J. B. Salsberg) left to start a new organization called

133-900: The Morris Winchevsky School which holds classes at the 918 Bathurst; the drop-in singing group, Zing! Zing! Zing!, and the Yiddish learning group, Red Yiddish . UJPO Toronto also owns Camp Naivelt , a socialist Jewish cottage community in Brampton, Ontario . For decades, the Vancouver branch published a national progressive Jewish magazine Outlook , and the Winnipeg section runs a number of cultural and educational activities. The now defunct Toronto Jewish Folk Choir held well attended concerts, several of which included long-time UJPO supporter and friend Paul Robeson , featuring Yiddish and Hebrew music. Another contribution to music made, indirectly, by

152-759: The New Fraternal Jewish Association , feeling that the UJPO was not critical enough of the Soviet Union. In the years following World War II , as the Jewish community moved north along Bathurst Street , the UJPO moved in 1960 to its current location at the Winchevsky Centre in the Bathurst and Lawrence area. UJPO's sections in Winnipeg and Toronto continue to engage in a wide variety of political and cultural activities. UJPO Toronto's social justice committee has been active in organizing campaigns and speakers on

171-758: The Padlock Law , with boxes of seized books, files and organizational material carted away by the Quebec Provincial Police . Following the raid, the building was sold to the Farband , a Labour Zionist organization, which used the building from 1951 until 1968, with the first floor being occupied by Glatt's, a kosher butcher from 1962 until the 2010s. In 1951, the UJPO was expelled from the Canadian Jewish Congress for opposing German re-armament, not to be re-admitted until 1995. After 1955, Sam Carr ,

190-765: The 1920s a cooperative housing building in the Bronx , New York. The Farband even developed and maintained cemeteries for movement members. While mainly based in New York, the Farband was active throughout the United States and Canada, forming local chapters and summer camps in many cities with significant Jewish communities. The summer camp for the New York chapter was called Camp Kinderwelt , located in Upstate New York , and had an adjoining adults camp called Unser Camp. The Farband ran

209-586: The Morris Winchevsky Yiddish School on Villeneuve Street West and operated summer camps such as the Nitgedeiget. The UJPO headquarters included, as a unique feature, a second story balcony with a five-foot-tall parapet modelled on the balconies in Moscow's Red Square from which Soviet leaders would address the crowd below. On January 27, 1950, the group's Montreal headquarters were closed under

SECTION 10

#1733084871852

228-716: The Ring in 1923, forming the Jewish Working Women's League ( Yiddish Arbeiter Froyen Farein ). When it was clear that control of the organization would stay in the hands of those critical of the Revolution, the men also withdrew and formed the Jewish Labour League Mutual Benefit Society in 1926, which became a social and intellectual home for Jewish Communists . The Canadian Workers' Circle was similarly formed in Montreal and Winnipeg . The two organizations merged on 4 October 1945 to form

247-687: The UJPO was the founding of the folk group The Travellers , which originated at Camp Naivelt in the 1950s. Zal Yanofsky —the son of prominent political cartoonist Avrom Yanovsky —spent his childhood years at Camp Naivelt and would later go on to found the Loving Spoonful with John Sebastian in 1964. Pete Seeger and a number of other prominent folk music figures including Phil Ochs often visited and sang at Camp Naivelt. Yidish Natsionaler Arbeter Farband The Yidish Natsionaler Arbeter Farband ( יידיש־נאַציאָנאַלער אַרבעטער־פאַרבאַנד }, also known as Jewish National Workers Alliance ( NJWA ))

266-451: The UJPO. At its peak in the 1940s and 1950s, the UJPO had more than 2,500 members nationwide with branches established in Hamilton and Niagara Falls , Calgary , and Vancouver , among others. The UJPO's leadership included well-known Jewish Communists and pro-Soviet activists, including Sholem Shtern , J. B. Salsberg , Joseph Zuken , Annie Buller , Sam Carr , and Fred Rose . The UJPO

285-556: The organization hosted a panel discussion featuring, among other speakers, anti-Zionist activist and Auschwitz survivor Hajo Meyer , a member of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network . The UJPO has branches in Winnipeg , Hamilton , and Toronto , where it operates the Winchevsky Centre, named after the famed Jewish socialist poet Morris Winchevsky . The Toronto branch sponsors several groups including

304-678: The organization's decades-long mission to promote Yiddish culture, UJPO-Toronto organizes a monthly drop-in singing group, Zing! Zing! Zing! and a Yiddish learning and discussion group, Red Yiddish . While the membership of UJPO has a wide range of views on Israel/Palestine, the organization has long opposed the Israeli Occupation and promoted Palestinian rights. In 2011, the United Jewish Appeal and Canadian Jewish Congress severed their relations with UJPO's Winchevsky Centre in Toronto after

323-525: The site of the Morris Winchevsky Centre in the Bathurst and Lawrence Area but in 2011 it returned downtown to its current location - the 918 Bathurst Centre. This article about a subject related to a Jewish organization is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Ontario school-related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . United Jewish Peoples%27 Order The United Jewish People's Order

342-760: Was active in supporting Jewish settlement in Birobidzhan through the Canadian Biro-Bidjan Committee . The Toronto branch of the UJPO was originally housed in the Jewish Workers' Cultural Centre on Brunswick Avenue, just north of Kensington Market , and then for many years in its own building on Christie Street, overlooking Christie Pits . UJPO's headquarters in Montreal were in the Morris Winchevsky Cultural Centre on de l'Esplanade Avenue from 1947 onwards. UJPO Montreal also operated

361-537: Was an early Yiddish-speaking Labor Zionist landsmanshaft in North America, founded in 1912. Its official organ was the Yidishe Kempfer or Jewish Fighter, edited by Baruch Zuckerman . The Farband operated as a mutual aid society parallel to the political party Poale Zion , organizing cooperative insurance and medical plans and an extensive Yiddish and Hebrew educational system, as well as having developed in

#851148