Ben Lappin's reflections on May Day celebrations in Toronto's Jewish quarter. (Notes and Documents).

WHEN BEN LAPPIN wrote this article for Commentary in 1955, he was working for the Canadian Jewish Congress as executive director of its Central (Ontario) region. In that capacity he knew the Toronto Jewish community, therefore, extraordinarily well, especially the multitude of political organizations, labour unions, sick-benefit societies, synagogues, and family associations that were affiliated with the Congress that styled itself "the parliament of Canadian Jewry."

Born in Kielce, Poland, in 1915, Lappin moved with his family to Canada in 1924. His parents, Leibish and Sarah -- Leibish was a Hebrew teacher -- gave Ben and his four siblings a sound Jewish education. During summer vacations, Ben went to work running messages between the Spadina Avenue clothing factories, and, for a while, as an operator in a shop producing socks -- an experience from which, according to his Congress colleague Ben Kayfetz, he garnered some humorous stories. On the Avenue he witnessed, first-hand, the bitter strikes, lockouts, and bankruptcies that plagued this tumultuous manufacturing sector during the 1930s. He saw the pain inflicted on workers by its low wages, sweatshop conditions, seasonality, and the long hours they were forced to work during the rushed production runs.

Between the wars, Toronto had a substantial Jewish working class, mainly in the …