On January 27, 1950, the group's Montreal headquarters were closed under the Padlock Law, with boxes of seized books, files and organizational material carted away by the Quebec Provincial Police.

B. Salsberg returned from a trip to the Soviet Union, where he found rampant Party-sponsored antisemitism and suppression of Jewish culture.

B. Salsberg) left to start a new organization called the New Fraternal Jewish Association, feeling that the UJPO was not critical enough of the Soviet Union.

UJPO Toronto's social justice committee has been active in organizing campaigns and speakers on a wide range of issues including labour and refugee rights; anti-racism and allyship; LGBTQ rights and opposition to homophobia and transphobia; aboriginal land rights and indigenous justice; Black Lives Matter; opposition to the Israeli occupation and bombing of Gaza; the campaigns to prevent the prosecution and extradition of Canadian academic Hassan Diab; and numerous campaigns against Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.

While the membership of UJPO has a wide range of views on Israel/Palestine, the organization has long opposed the Israeli Occupation and promoted Palestinian rights.

For decades, the Vancouver branch published a national progressive Jewish magazine Outlook, and the Winnipeg section runs a number of cultural and educational activities.

[15][11] The now defunct Toronto Jewish Folk Choir held well attended concerts, several of which included long-time UJPO supporter and friend Paul Robeson, featuring Yiddish and Hebrew music.

[16] Zal Yanofsky—the son of prominent political cartoonist Avrom Yanovsky—spent his childhood years at Camp Naivelt and would later go on to found the Loving Spoonful with John Sebastian in 1964.

Pete Seeger and a number of other prominent folk music figures including Phil Ochs often visited and sang at Camp Naivelt.