Driven from their homes in Russia, Poland, and Romania by pogroms and poverty, many Jews who came to Canada in the wave of immigration after the 1905 Russian revolution were committed radicals. A Future Without Hate or Need brings to life the rich and multi-layered lives of a dissident political community, their shared experiences and community-building cultural projects, as they attempted to weave together their ethnic particularity—their identity as Jews—with their internationalist class politics.

Ester Reiter is a Senior Scholar in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies, York University. The research for this book was adapted by director Ruth Howard of Jumblies Theatre for a play called Oy di Velt (Oh the World) first performed at Camp Naivelt and then remounted at Mayworks in 2009. Reiter is the author of Making Fast Food: From the Frying Pan to the Fryer.

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• Short-listed, Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature, History