Christie Pits, Faith Goldy, Doug Ford, Ukraine Arms Sales & more -- August and September on The Left Chapter in review

August and September saw 57 posts of various kinds on The Left Chapter.

Included among these was a very popular look at Trams and buses in the USSR -- A look at public transit in the Soviet Union, 1976, a recipe for authentic Italian-Style Hero Sandwiches, a commemoration of the 75th anniversary of The Four Days of Naples -- Rising Against Fascism, September 27, 1943 and a look at the "land of  the free" in Dispatches from the American terror state. 

Thanks very much to all our readers and contributors.

If you have an article, editorial, analysis, recipe or story you would like to contribute there are details on how to do so on our Submissions page as well as at the end of this post.

Without any further ado, here are the top six posts, in terms of hits, from August and September.

1) "Ban on Jews" -- A 1933 antisemitic beach edict in Long Branch reminds of Toronto's past on the anniversary of the Christie Pits Riot

Today is the 85th anniversary of the Christie Pits Riot, a pivotal moment in the fight against fascism and Nazism in Toronto and Canada in the early 1930s.

Read more!

2) Why are Toronto police officers striking a pose with far-right mayoral candidate Faith Goldy?

Faith Goldy, a "reactionary, islamophobic Rebel News contributor, turned “Euro-Canadian Catholic Nationalist”" held a campaign rally for her Toronto mayoral run today. As is common after such events she posted a photo of her and her volunteers on twitter.

Read more! 

3) Petty, vengeful and crass, bully boy Ford's toddler tantrum a dangerous sign of things to come


Early this morning -- in what was admittedly something of an unexpected judgement -- Justice Edward Belobaba ruled that Doug Ford's petty and vindictive Better Local Government Act was unconstitutional. Belobaba was fiercely critical of the act overall, though his decision primarily rested on it being an infringement of freedom of expression rights as opposed to an interference in democratic voting rights.

Read more!

4) Canada green lights arms sales to Ukraine as fascist militias attack Roma

Bucking the trend of near total silence in the western media as Ukraine's government drifts further and further towards the far right, The Guardian published an article Monday detailing attacks by Ukrainian fascist militias against the Roma that have been met with little to no response from the authorities.

Read more! 

5) Doug Ford's war on people in poverty exposes the basic cruelty of our system

There are some junctions and points in time when the fundamentally ugly and vicious underpinnings of the system we live under come more sharply into focus. These last few days are certainly one of those.

Read more!

6) Oil industry hack Rachel Notley's hypocritical concern for the "rule of law" now fully exposed

Funny how things change when the "rule of law" no longer goes the way of oil industry hack politicians, including faux "social democratic" ones.

Read more! 

Our top food related post was: Schmaltz Appetizing Grab n' Go a must for smoked fish, bagel and cream cheese sandwiches

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See also: Doug Ford, Hammer and Sickle Vodka, the NDP and BDS & more -- June and July on The Left Chapter in review

"Ban on Jews" -- A 1933 antisemitic beach edict in Long Branch reminds of Toronto's past on the anniversary of the Christie Pits Riot

The only known photo of the 1933  Christie Pits Riot

Today is the 85th anniversary of the Christie Pits Riot, a pivotal moment in the fight against fascism and Nazism in Toronto and Canada in the early 1930s.

The riot saw Jews and Italians take direct action in self-defence against a Toronto "Swastika Club" that was displaying swastika banners and inciting hatred during a baseball game in the Christie Pits park.

Their courage in standing up to these racists helped to stop the growth of Swastika Clubs and represented a serious setback for the city's fascists and Nazis at a time when antisemitism was dangerously on the rise.

Click to enlarge

This terrible history of overt antisemitism in the city and country is mostly forgotten now, though a close friend of mine came across a striking example of it in newspaper archives that occurred within my own community, Long Branch, also in 1933.

Long Branch is now a fully developed part of Etobicoke, a suburb of Toronto that borders Mississauga in the west of the metropolis.

But in 1933 it was a separate, sleepy community that had many cottagers and summer vistors in it due to its lake front aspect and its famous beaches.

As the Globe and Mail article relates, the municipality of Long Branch decided to ban all Jews not from Long Branch (and there were likely not many of those) from its beaches. Despite the obvious racism at work the town's Deputy Reeve Charles Brock tried to claim it had nothing to do with race!

This history of racism and resistance resonates again now especially with a US administration openly sympathetic to white supremacist narratives,  the rise of the far right across Europe and the growth of homegrown fascist and racist groups in Toronto and Canada.

Today these groups and regimes often primarily target Muslims and people of the Islamic faith, though their broader racism and antisemitism is rarely far from the surface. As many right wing politicians pander to Islamophobic narratives, scapegoat immigrants and refugees and call for banning certain types of dress or even denying access to public services and spaces to those who wear them, it is important to remember the long and awful past such thinking has.