Ester Reiter

Ester Reiter (née Koulack; 1941) is an American-Canadian historian and sociologist. She is a professor emerita in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies at York University. In 2017, her book A Future Without Hate or Need was shortlisted for the Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature.

Ester Reiter
Born	1941 (age 83–84) Brooklyn, New York, USA
Children	2
Academic background
Education	BA, 1962, History, Brandeis University MA., Sociology, Washington State University PhD., 1985, Sociology, University of Toronto
Thesis	Out of the frying pan and into the fryer: the organization of work in a fast food outlet (1985)
Academic work
Institutions	Memorial University of Newfoundland Queen's University Brock University York University
Main interests	Women, Sociology, Secular Jewish left in Canada; Immigrant Women; Gender, Race and Ethnicity; Left Politics, the Cold War and the War on Terror; Women and Work

Early life and education

Reiter came from a Jewish family and was born in Brooklyn, New York.^[1] She moved to Winnipeg in the 1960s and joined Canadian Voice of Women For Peace protests.^[2][3] She graduated from Brandeis University in 1962.^[4]

She left Winnipeg to pursue her PhD at York University in Toronto, Ontario.^[5] In order to complete her thesis, Reiter worked at a Toronto-based Burger King to observe how work is organized in fast food.^[6]

Career

After earning her PhD, Reiter had a limited appointment as a professor of sociology at Memorial University.^[7][8] She was then hired by Queen's University in 1986 as a sociology professor^[9] before being hired as an associate professor at Brock University.^[10]

She stayed at Brock until the 2002–03 academic term when Reiter was given a full-time appointment as an associate professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies at York University.^[11] She retired from teaching in 2011.^[12]

In 2016, she launched her book A Future Without Hate or Need. ^[13] The book was a study of how left-wing secular Judaism in Canada survived and flourished from the 1920s to 1960s.^[14] The book was shortlisted for the 2017 Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature.^[15]

In 2018, Reiter protested the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada for invoking the notwithstanding clause in the middle of a municipal election campaign. She refused to leave Queen's Park and was escorted out.^[2]

Selected publications

The following is a list of selected publications:^[16]

• Women in a Changing Economy (1989)
• Making Fast Food: From the Frying Pan into the Fryer (1991)
• Racism, anti-semitism, anti-feminism and the new hate mongers (1994)
• First-Class Workers Don′t Want Second-Class Wages: The Lanark Strike in Dunnville (1995)
• A future without hate or need: the promise of the Jewish left in Canada (2016)