Research Notes: Comparing Jewish Anarchist Mutual Aid Initiatives in Montreal and Toronto: The Role of Cooperation

Abstract

Constituting an important element of the Canadian Jewish diaspora, although relatively overlooked by the historiography, the Jewish anarchist movement was instrumental in operating two mutual aid initiatives in eastern Canada in the first half of the twentieth century. Based in Montreal and Toronto, these initiatives and the communities overseeing them were largely inspired by the anarchist humanitarian work for the benefit of political prisoners. The latter was heralded by the universal anarchist Emma Goldman, a frequent visitor of Canada. Locally, however, both groups were rooted in a complex relational network, ranging from the predominantly socialist Jewish organization Workmen’s Circle (Arbeiter Ring) to Zionist milieux and smaller anarchist communities mainly of Russian and Italian origin. Drawing on archival findings from the Jewish collections of Montreal and Toronto, as well as testimonies and scholarship on Jewish radicalism in Canada, the article ambitions to measure the limits of this multi-scale cooperation and its consequences for the local anarchist presence. Through a comparative analysis of the Montreal and Toronto movements, the study attempts to explain the differences in their evolution, as well as to identify the possible, only partly overlapping reasons for their decline circa 1940.