Joe Salsberg

This book follows the life and intellectual journey of Joseph Baruch Salsberg, a Polish-Jewish immigrant who became a major figure of the Ontario Left, a leading voice for human rights in the Ontario legislature, and an important journalist in the Jewish community. His life trajectory mirrored many of the most significant transformations in Canadian political and social life in the twentieth century.

Award-winning historian Gerald Tulchinsky traces Salsberg’s personal and professional journey – from his entrance into Toronto’s oppressive garment industry at age 14, which led to his becoming active in emerging trade unions, to his rise through the ranks of the Communist Party of Canada and the Workers’ Unity League. Detailing Salsberg’s time as an influential Toronto alderman and member of the Ontario legislature, the book also examines his dramatic break with communism and his embrace of a new career in journalism.

Tulchinsky employs historical sources not used before to explain how Salsberg’s family life and surrounding religious and social milieu influenced his evolution as a Zionist, an important labour union leader, a member of the Communist Party of Canada, and a prominent member of Toronto’s Jewish community.