EP3: Labour of Love

Episode 3 : Labour of Love

Labour organizing, unions, and activism: Episode 3 highlights the impact language, culture, and Jewish identity had on Montreal's progressive labour history with a special focus on famed organizer Lea Roback.

Thank you to our featured guests, in order of appearance:  Pierre Anctil, Ester Reiter, Sam Bick, Moishe Dolman,  Aaron Krishtalka, Melanie Leavitt, Eiran Harris, Lea Roback, Eddie Paul, and Shannon Hodge.

Get caught up on the happenings in today's Jewish Community--check out Bonjour Chai with hosts Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy, available through the Canadian Jewish News network. Find out more at https://thecjn.ca/.

recollections with the JPL is a production of the Jewish Public Library Archives and Special Collections.

Thank you to all of our guests: Pierre Anctil, Sam Bick, Moishe Dolman, Shannon Hodge, Aaron Krishtalka, Melanie Leavitt, Eddie Paul, and Ester Reiter.

Visit JPL Curates to see licensing info, guest bios, related materials from the JPL Archives and Special Collections, and our further reading guide featuring works from JPL's catalogue.

Info:

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Production and editing by Ezell Carter and Ellen Belshaw

Research support by Leah Graham, Sam Pappas, Maya Pasternak, and Eddie Paul

Mastering by Josh Boguski

Theme song and music by Danijel Zambo

Sound effects provided by Pixabay and the JPL Archives

Thank you to our sponsors, the Azrieli Foundation and Federation CJA

Transcript

[00:00:00] Pierre Anctil: Jewish left means social justice. Uh, it means either by consensual or democratic means, or in certain cases by violent means, that you will obtain more justice for the workers, more equality for women, uh, and, and a better distribution of wealth. Generally, that's the meaning. Um, it, it has in it values of the enlightenment, values of equality and the French Revolution.

But. There's not just one Jewish left. There's many. That's something that's sometimes overlooked. Uh, there's communism. There's socialism. There's anarchism. And there are many other varieties. 

[00:00:48] Ellen Belshaw: I'm Ellen [00:01:00] Belshaw. 

[00:01:00] Ezell Carter: And I'm Ezell Carter, and you're listening to Episode 3 of ReCollections with the JPL, the Jewish Public Library Archives and Special Collections podcast. 

[00:01:12] Ellen Belshaw: If this is your first time joining us, ReCollections with the JPL is a weaving of several interviews to tell the stories of the Jewish left in Montreal.

Today, we're focusing on social and communal organizations, labor movements, In the early days of communism in Canada. Welcome to ReCollections.

[00:01:48] Ezell Carter: Okay, so you know how we do. We just hit record. 

[00:01:53] Ellen Belshaw: So we're halfway through this mini series. Yes. How are you feeling? Oh my gosh, it's so hard! [00:02:00] 

[00:02:01] Ezell Carter: It's so much work! Oh, so much respect to podcast creators out there. No joke. 

[00:02:10] Ellen Belshaw: Yeah. It's been difficult to figure out where to put certain things. I think with the structure we've chosen and the topic we've chosen, we've made it very hard for ourselves, but it's fun at the same time, but there's so many things that could lead down any number of paths and we have to choose which one we want to take.

[00:02:27] Ezell Carter: Oh man. And it's trying to give everyone. their moment, right? Like their time in the sun. And there's got, there's got to be like a hundred of these organizations just here, just in Montreal. Um, so it has been a little overwhelming, but also like endlessly fascinating trying to, to just taper it down so that we can get it under an hour.

[00:02:52] Ellen Belshaw: I know. Yeah. And each episode is under an hour, but we spent over an hour with each interviewee. So we're really [00:03:00] having to. cut stuff out, which is always hard. 

[00:03:03] Ezell Carter: I'm actually glad you said that because something that was really important to us when we started doing these interviews was making sure that after they were done, they were formatted in such a way that researchers could continue to use the full interview.

So, so not just the podcast, but actually being able to go back and look at that original interview as source material. But yeah, man, this is complicated. 

[00:03:26] Ellen Belshaw: Totally. 

[00:03:27] Ezell Carter: Oh my gosh. Y'all podcast creators, y'all are some real ones. Do you want to talk 

[00:03:33] Ellen Belshaw: a 

[00:03:33] Ezell Carter: little bit 

[00:03:33] Ellen Belshaw: about 

[00:03:34] Ezell Carter: the content of today's? I mean, I know you had some thoughts, especially considering what's going on today and what has been going on here since 

[00:03:41] Ellen Belshaw: 2023.

Yeah, this episode's interesting because we talk a lot about, uh, labor movements, organizing, activism, things like that. Um, And it's interesting that at the end of 2023, so just a few months ago, there was a record breaking number of union strikes happening. Something that I haven't seen in my [00:04:00] lifetime.

There were, um, people in healthcare, in education, uh, bus drivers. There were so many different unions striking at the same time, uh, seeking collective agreements. And I think, you know, a lot of what's happening in this episode or the content we cover in this episode, um, kind of ties to that, that more recent history too.

[00:04:21] Ezell Carter: Yeah. I know. Um, I recall when we were interviewing particularly Esther Ryder, um, who is the author of a future without hate or need, um, that, uh, she kind of made the comment that, you know, this fight is not new and it's been ongoing. I mean, honestly, probably since the birth of man, right? Um, so yeah, it's, it's, always timely, but it feels 

particularly so right now.

[00:04:48] Ellen Belshaw: Yeah. I mean, I, I don't have an agenda here, but I'm definitely interested in making these kind of connections through history, like you're saying. And it makes a lot of sense in the most basic way that when people determine [00:05:00] that what they're experiencing isn't working for them, that they will start to imagine a better future.

And then. often start working towards that future. And that's a root of what I see through all of these different organizations and groups that we're going to dive into in this episode. And kind of the basis of the whole leftist movement, right? Absolutely. 

[00:05:18] Ezell Carter: Yeah. So are you ready to dive in? 

[00:05:21] Ellen Belshaw: Totally. 

[00:05:21] Ezell Carter: Okay.

Well, I am particularly happy to share, as is my good friend Ellen, um, that we are including a special ninth speaker in today's episode. 1993 interview with the infamous organizer Lea Roback, conducted by our very own archivist emeritus, Irene Harris. 

[00:05:47] Ellen Belshaw: You'll hear more about Lea and her story interwoven throughout this episode.

Pierre Antille starts us off today. 

[00:05:54] Pierre Anctil: Uh, the um, Immigration figures plummeted. Canada closed [00:06:00] its door to immigrants almost totally. Not Jews only, but all immigrants. So for communities like the Jewish community, it, it severed a very Constant and deep link with the countries of origin. And it created a great deal of insecurity, despair.

And I would say even people lost faith in the society they were living in. Hence. The development of left leaning organizations who, of course, criticized communism, uh, capitalism very strongly. So that's one element. 

[00:06:49] Ester Reiter: At first, you know, they were all part of the Abbotoning, and you know what their criteria was?

If you hated the capitalist system. Then you were in. You could be an [00:07:00] anarchist. You could be a social democrat. You could be a left wing Zionist. Everybody fit under that umbrella. 

[00:07:09] Sam Bick: We can, like, loosely, in terms of the Jewish context, talk about, like, three areas of what becomes the Jewish left that is very much in dialogue with the non Jewish left in Russia and in Western Europe at the time.

And that is something. like socialist and anarchist on one side or not on one side but one group would be kind of a socialist anarchist group another group is has more is socialist and anarchist with like uh cultural nationalism let's say which is more of a bundes take And then, uh, leftist Jews who have a sense of, uh, or believe that land or, or, or territory is very important for, uh, political projects and which would be more of the territorialists or, um, uh, left Zionists.

And so the question of like, um, well, [00:08:00] what were the political movements of Jews? What were the, or yeah, what were the political movements of Jews in Montreal in the early 20th century? It's helpful to think of like these three strands as being Ideas that are present or movements that are present. The, what I would call the socialist or anarchist tendency, um, one, one group that in kind of comes together as the Arbiter Ring in, in 1907, the Arbiter Ring, which means workman's circle was a, is it, is a, but was then a Jewish fraternal organization.

Uh, based, uh, like a Jewish workers fraternal organization. And they were quite, um, open in who they allowed into the group. So it included socialists and territorialists, Marxists, social Democrats, Bundists, and that that's kind of one, the Arbiter Ring, which Hirsch Hershman was involved in [00:09:00] starting in 1907, uh, serves as kind of the like gathering For the different strands of Jewish leftists at the time.

[00:09:10] Moishe Dolman: But if you go on the cemetery, as Sam and I, you'll recall Sam, when we were there, you can go on the Workman's Circle Cemetery and see people's graves. They devoted their lives to the working class. You can go on the communist section. They devoted their hammer and sickle on their tombstone. People go nowadays to hear a show and, um, An indie rock show at the Sala Rosa in St.

Lawrence. That was the Arbiter Ring, the workman's circle. Why did they build that? Because, for the same reason all these Jewish mutual aid societies started. Because they did not want working class Jews. The Arbiter Ring on St. Lawrence, they said, we're going to have a dance. We want workers to meet other workers.

The children of, you're going to have a gym. We want working class Jewish kids to meet with [00:10:00] other working class Jewish kids. We want courses, working class things, and the Jewish trade unions would often be located in that building on St. Florence, where nowadays people go to hear indie rock music and stuff like that, which was built in the Depression.

But it was the idea that it's to like build on what Sam was saying, that We want to have cultural, uh, cultural organizations, but we want cultural organizations. If we're going to have Jewish cultural organizations, let them be class conscious ones.

[00:10:40] Aaron Krishtalka: The United Jewish People's Order, the Orden der Orden, uh, I think was born in the middle 1930s and it, uh, it's not clear to me, uh, having seen something of the documents of, associated with the [00:11:00] organization, just why it was founded, but that it was, uh, modeled on existing organizations of the same sort, not on the Uh, communist leaning left, but rather on the democratic socialist left or the Zionist left.

It was modeled on those communal organizations. Those organizations have much older roots than the Uchpo. But the Uchpo, well, borrowed. the same features which made them attractive. It offered, obviously, uh, a social life, and a literary life, and, uh, cultural activities and enrichments of all sorts. It offered its members, uh, medical [00:12:00] Um, assistance and sick pay.

If they were in their insurance, if they were fell ill and couldn't work. Um, it offered, uh, a burial plot. All of this was paid for by the Jews that members paid in, so it was. Like other sick benefit organizations, but, uh, but with much more attached because it had a fundamental ideology which was, uh, frankly communist or communist leaning, at least in its ideals.

Some of its leaders, perhaps most of them, in the executive committee of this organization were themselves members of the, of the Communist Party. And, uh, there was something of a novelty in that they organized themselves [00:13:00] into branches by gender. So, men's branches and women's branches. Uh, and I think this was inspired by the, uh, the ideal that it was attributed to the Soviet Union of liberation of, of women, uh, towards complete equality, social equality.

It offered a place where people of like mind could meet and talk and enjoy company. And, um, and in that sense, it was, uh, something very unsurprising to, to find. Right across Canada, in all sorts of societies, all sorts of, um, immigrant backgrounds, you find similar societies.[00:14:00] 

[00:14:00] Ester Reiter: I was never a Communist Party member, nor was the UJPO, even though we thought, oh yeah, you're a bunch of communists. Well, yeah, they were communists there, but so what? Um, nothing that we did, there was nothing that we did in this country that had anything to do with what was going on over there. Excuse me, organizing unions, defending working people.

fighting racism. The things that I was doing, the people around me were doing, they stand the test of time. 

[00:14:34] Sam Bick: The people who represent, the famous people who represent this communist strand would be someone like Fred Rose, who was a member of parliament in the Mid to late forties, uh, Becky Buhay and her brother, Michael, uh, Lea Roback is often someone who's kind of put into that mix.[00:15:00] 

[00:15:03] Melanie Leavitt: So Lea Roback was a, um, trailblazing, uh, feminist, labor organizer, communist, and peace activist. She was born to a Jewish immigrant family in 1903 in Montreal. But she, um, there were several pivotal moments in her life that would essentially prepare her to become the, the activist and the labor organizer that she would become in later years.

So Lea, uh, somebody who remained active in, in labor movement and feminist movement and in the social, in the pursuit of social justice in a, her activism spans seven decades. So she saw pretty much every important moment in the left. Uh, throughout the 20th century. She was always somebody who, from a young age, as she would say, and as her detractors [00:16:00] and her admirers would say, she had a big mouth.

Elle avait la grande gueule. So she was not someone who would ever, uh, withhold her, uh, criticism or, you know, she was never unwilling to speak her mind, which oftentimes meant that her employment was rather short lived. You know, she was a fixture in marches and on protests well into her 80s and 90s. She never She never retired from that commitment.

That was a lifelong commitment. And it was something that she, she also was not one to ever like to identify one particular moment. It's interesting because she was somebody who was never one who would rest on her laurels of past accomplishments. She was always a dreamer. adapting and evolving with changing times and with changing concerns, and always very open to looking at who are the present day people who are being, who are being marginalized?

Where is the, where is my attention and my activism best needed now? And so I think that that's a very [00:17:00] interesting lesson that she provides is that idea of, of, Always remaining engaged but always being open to new ideas and to learning more and to, um, you know, not allowing your activism to become fossilized.

While she was born in Montreal and really in the heart of the immigrant Jewish community, steps away from Saint Laurent Boulevard in the main, at the age of around two years old, her family decides to move to the town of Beauport, which is just outside of Quebec City, and it was a town that was Catholic, Francophone, and the Roback family, when they arrived there, are the first and only Jewish family in this village.

And that really, um, would become a really pivotal moment in her, in preparing Lea later on in life to be able to build bridges between communities. She's, she's Ends up spending her formative years from the age of [00:18:00] around two years old until she's 15, living in this, uh, you know, immersed in this traditional French Canadian rural setting.

And, um, because of that experience, she is, you know, exposed to a culture. She's exposed not only to the language, but also to understanding the cultural background of, you know, traditional early 20th century, uh, Quebec society. Something that very. Very few other Jewish, um, you know, members of the Jewish community would be exposed to.

When the family returns back to Montreal, when she's 15, she then is exposed to other different types of, uh, you know, forms of witnessing social and economic inequalities. When she returns to Montreal and she starts to work at the British American dye works. She's not actually working as a factory worker in that job, um, but she is working at the front desk, sort of in the reception.[00:19:00] 

But she does, it does allow her to have contact with the people who are coming in, who are bringing in, uh, dresses, you know, these ball gowns. that are needing to be repaired, uh, but it, it highlights to her the social and class divisions and inequalities that exist in Montreal society. Here you have these workers coming in, it's oftentimes what would be referred to as la bonne, you know, the, the maid, the housekeeper, uh, or the drivers coming in and they're bringing in dresses that belong to the upper class, the elite, the bourgeoisie of Montreal society.

And she's witnessing, you know, looking at these dresses that most likely cost what these working, like what the working class would make in a year. And so, you know, that's another just example that highlights social, you know, class divisions along, um, Not only class divisions, but how they also fall along language lines and along religious lines as well.

But even more importantly in that job [00:20:00] is just her exposure, her ability to start to talk one on one with the working class. She's also kind of a Francophile. She loves French literature, French theater, French, uh, you know, performance. And so she, 1927 decides to go and study French literature in Grenoble, France.

And, you know, it's an excellent experience, but it doesn't quite live up to what she had hoped it would be. And so shortly thereafter, by 1929, she actually decides to leave. to move to Berlin. And that's the next, I'd say the pivotal moment in her, her life as a left wing activist. She joins her brother, her older brother, Harry, who was studying medicine in Berlin.

And once she's in Berlin, she, that's her exposure to seeing, you know, this is a pivotal time in history of, uh, the, economic, you know, Great Depression, but also the rise of fascism. And she's witnessing [00:21:00] the, that the only really legitimate response that she's seeing to this rise of fascism is from the Communist Party.

And so that's where she first She develops her interest in, uh, the kind of actions that they're taking on the streets. She participates in the May Day, uh, demonstrations and witnesses police brutality against the left. Uh, but this sort of solidifies her, her political convictions. She said it was a baptism by fire when she, when she decides to join the Communist Party.

She ends up officially joining the Communist Party in Berlin in 1931. And so she's immersed in the ideology. You know, there's a lot of education about the issues.

[00:21:49] Eiran Harris: But they didn't expect something from you, uh, let us say, to further their cause. He was a Canadian who [00:22:00] could possibly be helpful. 

[00:22:02] Lea Roback: No, no, I didn't mix in their politics. I told them. I came here to study the language, the history. I said that's why I came here,

And it was, so they, I came here not as a French Canadian, English Canadian, Jewish. I came here as a Canadian, see as Canadian, and had I said I was Jewish, then of course I had said

no. It would have been gresslisch. So I just said, Ich bin Kanadierin. And, and, Ça marche. 

[00:22:49] Eiran Harris: They didn't try to convert you? No. The students? 

[00:22:53] Lea Roback: No, no, no. They, uh, they would talk about their politics. We discussed [00:23:00] that. But I told them, That's not for me. I'm not interested. But I used to get the Hohe Tafane. I got that regularly.

And I used to go to the communist meetings. Because at that time, I was red, red, red.

[00:23:22] Melanie Leavitt: Shortly thereafter, though, obviously the context, the Um, The political climate is becoming increasingly hostile. There's the, you know, Hitler is coming into power. As a Jewish woman, and a member of the Communist Party, and a foreigner, you Her friends and her comrades in the movement very quickly let her know that she really should be leaving and that she should take this opportunity to return to Canada.

And she's very resistant at first. You know, she's somebody who is very tenacious. She is fearless. She always wants to be on the front lines and, and, and fighting against injustice. [00:24:00] She quickly realizes that she has to return to Canada. And so when she returns, she's now coming with all of this Um, ideological, uh, baggage, you know, she's fully immersed in the movement in the Communist Party.

She arrives back into Montreal, which is now also quite different than the Montreal, and certainly the Montreal Jewish community that she had left in the 1920s. She's arriving back at a time when there is rampant poverty and unemployment and, and, and, major suffering but also at the same time because of the dire circumstances there's also a groundswell of support for various different left wing movements and so you see that she's able to return to a Montreal and a Jewish left wing Montreal that's very already actively engaged and that's when she joins into the activities and the organizing that's taking place here [00:25:00] by the communist party here in Montreal.

in Montreal and in, in, in Quebec and, uh, immediately, you know, meets somebody like Fred Rose, who at the time was the leader of the Quebec division of the communist party. And so it's right away back into the heart of the action. And she's, uh, you know, helping out with different activities, organizing for, um, Not only, you know, her network that she gets involved with are involved in the Communist Party, but at the time the Communist Party is illegal.

It's, everything is being done clandestinely. And, and so all of these different, uh, movements are all They're all interrelated, you know, like anybody who was involved in the left at that time was in some way involved and, and, and, um, there were intersections between these different groups. It wasn't simply the Communist Party or if you identified as being a socialist or an [00:26:00] anarchist.

[00:26:21] Moishe Dolman: But let's talk about a famous luminary who came to Montreal, Emma Goldman, the most dangerous woman in America. Um, As she was called by J. Edgar Hoover, exiled from the United States. People often know her if they've watched the movie Reds. They know all about Emma Goldman. Emma Goldman comes to Montreal in 1908.

And she says, she writes afterwards. She came to this city, Montreal. It's horrible. It's dark. It's cold. It's priest ridden. The Catholic Church runs everything. But there is [00:27:00] one hope. in Montreal. And what is that? It's the influx of masses of Jewish immigrants who, wherever they go in their travels in the world, bring with them the class struggle and the struggle for revolution.

Emma Goldman, by the way, visits Montreal very, very frequently. And she Uh, give speeches. This is also part of Jewish left history in Montreal. During the Depression, on the corner of Mount Royal and St. Lawrence, 9 Mount Royal West, to be more specific, there was all the left wing, uh, organizations and the Um, and the various Jewish mutual aid societies, sick benefits societies, you name it, they all open up a Jewish soup kitchen for the unemployed.

This [00:28:00] becomes a Jewish cooperative kitchen. Okay, it's, you don't have to be Jewish to go in, you can get a very cheap kosher meal there so that everybody should feel free to eat, religious or non religious. The interviewer says, you interview her, you think, the only thing she's interested, her main interest in life is Jewish culture, Jewish life, the future of the Jews, the past of the Jews, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Most people on the outside don't know this, they're not aware of it. She used to lecture in Montreal, uh, giving lectures in Yiddish literature as a way of making a little money. And one of her great friends in Montreal, who may organize Testimonial dinner on her behalf in 1937 was none other than Rabbi Harry Joshua Stern, the rabbi of the Temple Immanuel.

And at this testimonial dinner, he said that [00:29:00] His great friendship with Emma Goldman taught him that you could have excellent values even if you don't believe in God. And she responded that her great friendship with Rabbi Stern taught her that you could have excellent values even if you do believe in God.

[00:29:21] Pierre Anctil: There is a, uh, delineation. There's a frontier. There's a border. Which is basically in the 50s that we relate to this world and we understand Rather easily what took place from the 50s on after World War two But what took place before World War two or before the 50s? requires serious research because It's a very, very different [00:30:00] society from the one we know now.

Although it's the same Montreal, it's the same Canada, it's the same families, it's the same communities. Well, one thing that's very important about the political landscape in Montreal in the 30s is this was the Great Depression. So the unemployment rate, was around 30%. Today it's about 4 or 5%. So you can imagine if you multiply the unemployment rate by 8 or 10 times, imagine what it does in terms of isolation, poverty, and, uh, despair. So these were very, very difficult years, 1929 to 1939, for everyone, everywhere.

[00:30:51] Moishe Dolman: In the 1920s and 30s, you have a, when you have the depression, things which have been slightly improving [00:31:00] start to get really worse. The exploitation becomes even worse. Wages are lower and lower. The piecework is heavier and heavier. And at the same time, you have the rise of fascism in Europe with its adherence as well in Canada, and especially openly in the province of Quebec.

And this becomes a risk. So you have the, you have a desire on the part of all Jews to fight fascism and especially the working class Jews to fight the terrible exploitation of the capitalist system in the 1930s. 

[00:31:49] Aaron Krishtalka: The period of from the mid 19th century to right into the 20th century. Up to [00:32:00] and including the First World War in the 1920s and 30s.

This was a period of the growth of nationalisms everywhere. And, uh, in European history it led to, of course, a series of wars and two world wars. Um, empires, multinational empires disappeared. national states, uh, um, driven by, uh, in most cases, a very extreme, uh, self identifying national consciousness led by nationalist intellectuals mostly.

Um, these were the heirs to a Europe and to a West that had looked upon itself as a single civilization. [00:33:00] And the process of crystallization of nation everywhere continues after the Second World War. And we see it still going on.

[00:33:23] Lea Roback: You know, even to this day, when I think of it, how could that have happened? Brilliant people, heads of scientists and everything. People were afraid. They didn't speak up. And you know, it can happen here too. It can happen in any country where there are mixed nationalities. 

[00:33:53] Melanie Leavitt: The Jewish community at that time was just immersed in all of these various [00:34:00] different left wing movements.

And so that's where she's, you know, she's, she's returning to Montreal and getting involved in that. And because of her, um, Her connection that she forms with Fred Rose, she is then, um, you know, they develop not only a, a partnership in terms of their activism and as fellow comrades, but a real genuine friendship.

And so when he decides to run for his first campaigns, initially they were unsuccessful, but he tries in 1935 to run for federal, um, in the federal election. And then the next year in the provincial election, he asked. And again, what he's identified in her are those skills that were very much a result of the trajectory of her life.

She's somebody who is perfectly at ease in Yiddish, in English, and in French. She's somebody who's well versed in all of the political, uh, terminology and, and the, she has the [00:35:00] consciousness of somebody, you know, of a, of a good Communist Party member. Um, but also she's somebody who's fearless, who's somebody who's not afraid to stand on the street corner, hand out pamphlets, go door to door and, and canvas.

And so she's the perfect fit, uh, just out of her, by, by her nature too. 

[00:35:21] Pierre Anctil: Uh, the Communist Party of Canada was outlawed. in 1919. So that remained until the war, because during the war, the USSR and the allies, of course, were fighting against the Nazis together. So, so that cooled down the relationship and the hostility to communism.

But in the interwar period, um, there's a great deal of hostility to communism. everywhere in Canada, except among those who often are of foreign origins, which is one of the criticisms that were [00:36:00] leveled against them. Jews and non Jews who brought with them these notions from Europe when they migrated.

[00:36:10] Ester Reiter: It's sort of funny, like my aunt and uncle were communists. My parents, they really weren't into politics. They just weren't, but they were immigrants and there was something about the comfortableness of the values. of the left that I think attracted them so much that even though everyone was scared during, you know, during the fifties, they still sent me to Camp Kinderland, you know, which was investigated by the way, by the House Un American Activities Committee.

So how did I, I actually have a lot of respect for people who have to think this through and go to the left. I grew up in the left. This is what it was. So I don't, I didn't have to make that leap. 

[00:36:56] Moishe Dolman: In Canada, in the 1930s, the [00:37:00] Communist Party, specifically the Communist Party, became the main party of Jews.

In the 1930s, with the rise of fascism, it often seemed to Jews that The communists were the real ones who were standing up to defend the Jews. Among the Jews here in Montreal, which I alluded to earlier, you had a bunch in 1943 where the communist candidate Fred Rose won. Just like in the provincial elections in the Jewish area, The communist candidate, J.

B. Salzberg, won in the provincial elections, everywhere in the metropolitan centers, the communists were becoming the main Jewish party. Not only did the, the communists have succeeded in showing the Jews that not only they, the main group to fight for working class issues, and they [00:38:00] presented practical things.

They'd stop talking about socialism, what the future would look like, just certain things. Let's propose this kind of legislation. Let's propose a law against antisemitism. Let's propose a law about the minimum wage.

[00:38:36] Eddie Paul: The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire was one of the worst industrial disasters that happened in the United States. It was, um, took place in 1911. in March in New York, and the fire caused the deaths of almost 150 garment workers, mostly women, uh, [00:39:00] who died mainly not just from the fire, but also smoke inhalation, or there were people who also jumped to their deaths.

Most of the victims were Italian or Jewish immigrants, uh, aged 14 to 23. A factory employed About 500 workers, um, they worked 9 hours a day on weekdays, 7 hours on Saturdays, earning between 7 and 12 a week for 52 hours of work. Um, smoking was prohibited in the factory. But some of the cutters were known to sneak cigarettes and exhale the smoke through their lapels to avoid detection.

Uh, so you know there had been some suspicion that maybe the fire had been caused by a lit cigarette. And the New York Times, I think there was an article that suggested the fire had been started by engines running the sewing machines. I don't know that they ever actually found out for sure how [00:40:00] it was caused.

Uh, one of the Controversies arose when it was discovered that even though the floor where the fire, uh, happened had a number of exits, including freight elevators and a fire escape, all the doors were locked so nobody could get out. And, uh, this was said later on, uh, to have happened for two reasons. One was to prevent theft by the workers.

Uh, and the other. Was, uh, the locked doors allowed managers to check the women's purses? when, when the workday ended. And other historians also, uh, conjectured that, um, the doors were locked because the management wanted to keep the union organizers out of the factory floors. Uh, the owners, uh, were two Jewish immigrants, Max Blank and Isaac Harris.

They survived the fire by fleeing to the building's roof when it began. And, [00:41:00] uh, they were later indicted on charges of first and second degree. Um, manslaughter. The trial was in December of 1911 and they were eventually acquitted after a long trial. This was a major milestone in Jewish labor history. Um, and has been written about considerably in, you know, in the literature of Union history.

The fire led to, um, at least one major government organization instituting a law. Uh, instituting rules and legislation about, uh, safety, uh, safety, uh, standards in factories. And, uh, initiated a, a sort of a new history in the, uh, evolution of, uh, workers rights in the United States. Uh, that, um, became a model for, um, subsequent, you know, events and incidents that, [00:42:00] uh, you know, are sort of covered under the aegis of, uh, labor history.

The International Ladies Garment Workers Union, um, had established between 1910 and 1911, they'd established several Canadian locals in Montreal, Toronto, and Winnipeg. They'd won early gains, they had, the road to unionizing garment workers in Canada was, was long. Uh, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, the ACWA, It was reported that only about a quarter of the workers in the needle trades had unionized by the 1920s.

Um, and in contrast, half of the workforce, half of the entire workforce had unionized by 1937. 

[00:42:47] Melanie Leavitt: So at this point, the, the, um, the ILGWU is looking to try to make a campaign to attempt to Enter, uh, you know, to come in and bring the union into [00:43:00] Montreal's garment industry, which at that point, despite the fact that Montreal was the capital of clothing production in all of Canada, the, um, unions were having a tremendous amount of difficulty in successfully, um, reaching the workers and getting their foot in the door into that industry because they were faced with the problems of, well, for one a, a political and a religious, and a.

social climate that was quite hostile towards unionization, but also because they were faced with a workforce, um, particularly, um, in the dress industry that was primarily female, about 80 percent female, but also predominantly French Canadian Catholic. And that was the workforce that the left wing international unions that were mostly run and organized by Eastern European Jewish left wingers were not really able to successfully bridge that gap.

[00:44:00] There was a, you know, there was this over years, and in fact decades, they had been making small inroads into the industry, but it was mostly limited to the Jewish workforce. It's, And there are different variations on the exact story, but it was either directly Fred Rose, or it was Ted Allen, who was a member of the Communist Party and also a writer and journalist, who apparently was the one who first brings Lea to the attention of Rose Pesotta, who is the vice president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.

[00:44:38] Eddie Paul: There was a strike at Eaton's, the department store, in 1912. This was in Toronto. This was the first major strike action that was conducted by the, uh, International Lady Garment Workers Union here in Canada. Um, specifically what happened was that in 1912, 65 men who worked as machine operators sewing coats [00:45:00] refused to follow new orders to complete finishing work.

Uh, and the owner, Timothy Eaton, demanded without offering an increase in pay, uh, to be fired. some fairly substantial, you know, production that just the men would refuse to do. So there was a strike and it was effective in the Toronto, in Toronto's immigrant Jewish community. And this actually formed a backdrop to what happened in the fall of 1936 when the ILGWU began to organize workers Uh, here in Canada, in Toronto, Winnipeg, and Montreal, uh, the workforce here was almost entirely, uh, female.

Uh, uh, In numerous sweatshops, uh, where the conditions were just horrible. 

[00:45:47] Melanie Leavitt: You know, the men who were the tailors and the cutters, and who they themselves were already well versed in these movements, so that wasn't where the challenge lay. And then the Jewish women who were in the industry, that was also not a challenge.[00:46:00] 

The challenge really was in trying to successfully reach and, and, and recruit the French Canadian Catholic female workforce. And for years that had been considered to be, uh, simply impossible. They would say whether it was the unions or even whether it was the government of Quebec or the Catholic Church, they would all just say that those women, the French Canadian women, were not organizable.

And so it was somebody like Rose Pizzotta who said, you know, no, this is something that we can do and we have to do it. We have to get our foot in there. 

[00:46:35] Eddie Paul: It becomes relevant here. The union had dispatched a woman by the name of Rose Pesotta, who was a union organizer from New York, but she didn't speak any French.

And, uh, Leia was the ideal person to help out Rose Passota. Uh, she played a key role because she was able to speak to the, uh, the francophone women in their own [00:47:00] language. Uh, the, the French, the French speaking women constituted about 60 percent of 

[00:47:05] Lea Roback: If she was there as a worker, they paid. They told her. C'est semaine. And then it went up to it. When they heard that there was a union, on va donner sept piastres. Well, we were asking eleven. And, uh, they sent, uh, this Rose Posata. She was a wonderful organizer. A Ukrainian Jewess, but she always said she was Spanish.

Because, at that time, Jews, not so kosher. So, she'd say, Posata? [00:48:00] Her name was, I don't know, Krushnitz or something. Posata knew. And, uh, Rose Posata said, We're going to organize. And I knew about unions. I said, It's about time. She says, Will you help us? I said, Sure I will. I did. 

[00:48:19] Melanie Leavitt: These were women that she knew.

She could relate to them. These were women that were just the same as her friends during her childhood or the neighbours that she grew up around. And so, um, she is identified and approached. And hired to be the director of education for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. And that's starting in 1936.

And she would play a really instrumental role during the subsequent months of their campaign, leading up to what I would argue is one of the or deserves to be recognized as one of the most important strikes in Quebec labor history, which is the Dressmaker Strike of 1937, [00:49:00] or often also referred to as the Midi Net Strike, and, and it's, um, would become the largest strike of female workers in Quebec history, and would remain so for decades to come.

[00:49:14] Eddie Paul: And after about three weeks, they signed a collective agreement. The strikers celebrated their victory, but a year later, The contract was broken in the face of anti communist purges that were more, um, common, I guess, in the 1930s here in, in Montreal. Uh, Lea in

 particular left the garment workers in 1939, but she continued the struggle to improve the conditions of working women throughout, uh, the rest of her life through the 40s and, and on.

[00:49:44] Melanie Leavitt: But it is the first successful attempt by an international union, or a union that the detractors would often refer to as. a Jewish union or a communist union, even though they absolutely were not that far left. But [00:50:00] it's their first, um, time that, uh, um, a secular, you know, a neutral union from, you know, that was easily be able to be dismissed as just being, you know, a threat that comes from the Jews and the, the communists and the outsiders, actually manages to convince thousands of French Canadian workers to join.

And to go on strike and they're successful. So it's a really monumental moment in, I would argue, not only in labour history and certainly not limited in its impact to the garment industry, but that really paved the way for important, uh, gains in, in the labor movement across all different sectors. It also paved the way for many important gains in terms of women's rights.

[00:50:49] Shannon Hodge: Going through Leia's materials, the first thing that popped into my head was the personal is political, which is usually associated with second wave [00:51:00] feminism. And when you talk about Leia, I think that there's no way that you can disconnect this of the personal is political from Leia, because She was second wave feminism before that even became an idea in the 60s, right?

She was this person who, um, knew that the way that a woman, um, was confined or was operating in her own sphere, in her home, in her domesticity, how she was in the workplace, you know, those were all kind of viewed as women's things, but not necessarily political. Which is of course not true. And when you look through Leia's collections, you can see this very intimately, because she is very close to her family, but she understood that a woman's reproductive health was directly consequential to her own, uh, personal happiness, but also to the way that she interacted with the world around her.

And that as a communal group, women, um, had all of the same types of personal problems that they were facing. And [00:52:00] so her collection is the very definition of the personal is political. And you see that through everything that she does and her work. Um, trying to understand how important she was to so many people, but just the sheer magnitude of will that this woman must have had to be able to just, to be able to connect with so many different communities the way that she did is just amazing.

Still to this day, because at the time that she was within the labor movements, at the time that she became, you know, when she was in Germany in 1929 and joined the communist party. Um, and coming back to Montreal and still working for the Communist Party, but also working with YWHA and helping women, uh, with education and with better, trying to better themselves.

Through all, out all of this, she was, um, she was able to move seamlessly. So for, sorry, I'm like rambling because she just is so amazing. But in terms of historical perspective, I think people need to [00:53:00] understand just how, um, both divided different aspects of the daily life was for people. Um, because we had so many different groups at the time living within Montreal and trying to make themselves a life within the immigrant groups, um, but also just the perspective of, uh, of how unusual that was for people to be able to do that.

Just the fact that she could move seamlessly between French and English and Yiddish and German and, you know, was involved with communism but was also involved with, uh, with sex education for women and was also involved with the, uh, abortion rights and was also involved with supporting Indigenous women at one point.

So it's the fact that she could do this. It cannot be understated just how amazing it was that she was able to do this. 

[00:53:47] Melanie Leavitt: I think that that history is one that we, you know, in which our history as a Jewish community is very much a part of our collective history, um, as, uh, you know, contributing to [00:54:00] modern Quebec society.

So, you know, the Jewish left is something that unfortunately with time has, uh, It receives very little attention, certainly in how history is taught in our schools and how it is talked about in the public discourse. But when you look at, you know, oftentimes, certainly in Quebec, when we, we look back at, like, what was the pivotal moment when things changed in Quebec society?

When we, when we shifted from the, the great darkness, that grand noirceur of the, of the past of, and, and into a more progressive, uh, open society, everybody identifies. You know, the quiet revolution is, oh, that was the moment when everything changed. But in essence, the, the roots of the quiet revolution can be traced even further back.

You know, it, it didn't just start there. And you can trace its roots back to these early movements that were brought in. you know, that were very much present in, uh, the [00:55:00] early Jewish immigrant community of Montreal at the time.

[00:55:24] Ellen Belshaw: Recollections of the JPL is a production of the Jewish Public Library Archives and Special Collections. Additional production, editing, and operations by Ellen Belshaw and Ezell Carter. Research support from Lea Graham, Sam Papas, and Eddie Paul. Mixing by Ezell Carter and mastering by Josh Boguski.

[00:55:41] Ezell Carter: Musical score by Danjiel Zambo. Sound effects provided by Pixabay and the JPL Archives.

[00:55:48] Ellen Belshaw: Thank you to our sponsors, the Azrielli Foundation and Federation CJA. 

[00:55:52] Ezell Carter: You can find out more about this podcast and all of our other happenings at JPL- Curates. org. [00:56:00] Or sign up for our Archives and Special Collections newsletter, Der Zamler.

[00:56:04] Ellen Belshaw: You've been listening to ReCollections with the JPL. This is Ellen Belshaw 

[00:56:08] Ezell Carter: and Ezell Carter signing off. 

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