They Were Used for Amusement by Dr. A. M. Rosebrugh, Who Secured Instruments from Dr. Bell, Inventor Wires Ran on…
From the Toronto Star Weekly, September 2, 1922 Stenographer holds up the mirror to wives If Wives Could Get a…
From the Canadian Jewish News, December 2004 What do you get when you put a popular shtetl folk tale into…
Genie Milgrom, the author of My 15 Grandmothers, was one of numerous captivating speakers at the five-day International Conference on…
Here is the front page of the Toronto Star, as delivered to my home in north Toronto on Friday November…
From the Canadian Jewish News, May 12, 1972 For some time now it has been open season for Toronto’s Spadina Avenue and its off-shoot the Kensington Market in the daily, weekly and periodical press. At one time when The Toronto Star and the late Telegram were both carrying TV and entertainment supplements, one could expect…
From the Globe and Mail, Toronto, Oct. 4, 1952 This photo appeared in the Toronto Globe and Mail on October 4, 1952 at the start of the Festival of Sukkot. The photo shows Rene Slonim, daughter of Rabbi Reuben Slonim of the McCaul Street Synagogue, guiding six-year-old Seymour Epstein through the ceremony of the blessing…
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From the Jewish Standard, January 1937 The most remarkable thing about the late Mr. Elazar (Louis) Rotenberg, who died on Thursday, December 31, 1936, was the note of aristocratic bearing which characterized all his life and helped to create the tone of quiet refinement for which his household is noted. Throughout his fairly long life…
It has been 25 years since Canada’s leading publishing house McClelland and Stewart brought out A Basket of Apples and Other Stories by Shirley Faessler, a book that quickly won critical acclaim for its lively and colourful re-creation of the world of the Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants in the Kensington Market neighbourhood of Toronto in the…
There is now a vacant lot where the house on 42 St. George Street stood. All that is left of Mendel Granatstein’s home, a property which is now owned by the University of Toronto, is the front portico. According to Heritage Toronto records, the home was the first in Toronto to be owned by a…
Longtime friends of commercial and real estate lawyer Sam Moskowitz refer to him affectionately as “the son of the pickle man.” If you ask him what pickles and law have in common, he will tell you “everything.” His fond memories of his parents’ store at 186 Baldwin St., filled with barrels of pickles, herring, tomatoes,…
From the Canadian Jewish Chronicle, September 5, 1919 A very interesting decision was handed down last Sunday in the Jewish Court of Arbitration. The case was that of the S. Karsch Co., kosher sausage manufacturers. The company consists of two partners, Sam Karsh and Joseph Peverman. One of the partners accused the other of misappropriating…
From the Toronto Evening Telegram, September 12, 1912 Special Service conducted by Cantor Wladowsky With impressive ceremonial, with colour and light, and music of clear yet deep toned voices, special services for the Jewish New Year were celebrated in the University avenue synagogue this morning. Through windows within the vestibule you saw an audience of…
From the Canadian Jewish Chronicle, November 4, 1932 Kosher Quarrels Sap Energy from Community A truce was declared some time ago between the Toronto Vaad Ha’eer and the Kehillah, this truce now culminating in a peace between the rival organizations. As to the origin of the feud, it will always remain one of those indefinable…
From the Beth Sholom Bulletin, April 2011 Mickey and Frimette Snow speak exuberantly about their long attachment to Beth Sholom, the Toronto synagogue that they joined in 1951, two years after they were married. Mickey, whose surname was shortened from Sosnowski, was born in Toronto in 1927 in a house on Euclid Avenue owned by…
From the Globe and Mail, February 28, 1951 When Bernard Rosensweig is installed as rabbi of Bais Yehuda Synagogue, Dovercourt Road, next Sunday, it will be the first time that a Toronto-born boy has returned here as a rabbi. There are no rabbinical colleges in Canada. A student wishing to become a rabbi must leave…
Professions claim young Jews; many rise to prominence Dr. Bessie Pullan Singer First Woman in Canada to Receive Degree of Doctor of Medicine From the Toronto Evening Telegram, January 2, 1929 ◊ Note: This is an interesting, albeit uneven story that focuses more on two prominent rabbis of the city than on the younger generation of…
From the Toronto Star, September 8, 1938 Charges of petty thieving by peddlers were today discussed by the civic works committee. Alderman Salsberg demanded an explanation from the street cleaning commissioner, Harold Bradley, of his reported statement that licensed peddlers were guilty of such misdemeanors. He said that such statements, emanating from the head of…
Large Meeting Addressed by Candidate and other Speakers From the Globe and Mail, September 14, 1911 Note: Party politics evidently entered into municipal affairs in Toronto of a century ago. This article describes a rousing meeting held in support of Liberal Alderman Alfred Maguire at the Lyric Yiddish Theatre in 1911; Maguire would serve as…
by Ellen Weiser If you’re a baby boomer, or more accurately, a Jewish Toronto baby boomer, undoubtedly you have fond memories of a time and place that lives only in our dreams. Let me take you back to where I’m constantly accused of living … in the past. If anything, it was cheaper. For myself…
The Yiddish Yugend Farein or Yiddish Young People’s Organization of Toronto sponsored a Sukkot Concert at Massey Hall on September 25, 1918. Below is the 24-page program, along with a list of names of people and companies mentioned. Note that the booklet’s printed pagination was incorrect and that the order of the pages is correct…
Toronto publisher Now and Then Books’s latest title — Only Yesterday: Collected Pieces on the Jews of Toronto, by Benjamin Kayfetz and Stephen A. Speisman — is a prolifically illustrated book featuring 18 evocative articles by two notable historians of Toronto’s Jewish community. Culled from a variety of sources, the pieces in Only Yesterday focus…
Memoirs of Dorothy Goldstick Dworkin In the following article, the former Dorothy Goldstick relates her experiences working as a nurse and midwife in Toronto’s fledging Jewish community from 1907 to 1911, when thousands of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and the Russian Pale were arriving in the city each year. Below, Dworkin profiled in 1968;…
From the Toronto Star, November 4, 1909 ◊ This article reflects two problems sometimes faced by members of the city’s Jewish community in regard to the police. The first is selective enforcement of the law, seemingly targeting the Jews (and certainly other minorities probably even more). The second is the specific Sunday blue laws that meant…
From the Toronto Star weekly October 4, 1913 Some men who began with the bag over their shoulders now worth around $1 million — Old iron sold to the foundaries to be recast — Bones made into glue, fertilizers, and used in refining sugar – Paper and rags go to the Mills — Nothing is…
The following pages are from the souvenir booklet published by the Hebrew Sick Benefit Society of Toronto in 1935 upon the commemoration of its 35th anniversary. It contains many greetings, advertisements and other items from individual members, often listing family names and other details about family history. Most of the pages are in Yiddish. Each…
They Were Used for Amusement by Dr. A. M. Rosebrugh, Who Secured Instruments from Dr. Bell, Inventor Wires Ran on Poles of Fire Alarm System Dr. Rosebrugh Tested a Line to Hamilton and Started the…
From the Canadian Jewish News, December 2004 What do you get when you put a popular shtetl folk tale into a pot and add some flavourful compositions for full orchestra, rich klezmer sounds, a pinch…
I often get requests from researchers who have seen their family in the 1901, 1911 or 1921 census of Toronto but can’t find the street they were living on a modern map because the street…
From the Toronto Daily Star, May 7, 1907 At the next meeting of the annual conference of the Canadian Chiefs of Police, one of the most important subjects to be discussed is the establishment of…
◊ In light of the passing of Paul Reichmann in Toronto on Friday October 25 at age 83, we bring your attention to this review of the most thorough biography of the Reichman family, Anthony Bianco’s…
It has been 25 years since Canada’s leading publishing house McClelland and Stewart brought out A Basket of Apples and Other Stories by Shirley Faessler, a book that quickly won critical acclaim for its lively…
BOOK REVIEW: Joe Salsberg: A Life of Commitment, by Gerald Tulchinsky (University of Toronto Press, June 2013) It was said that it would take Joe Salsberg three to five hours to stroll along Spadina Avenue from…
There is now a vacant lot where the house on 42 St. George Street stood. All that is left of Mendel Granatstein’s home, a property which is now owned by the University of Toronto, is…
Even the children have their deposits — One lad of four opens his own account — Hard business to transact From the Toronto Daily Star, January 26, 1906 That Toronto in common with American cities…
Children of the Factory were surprisingly happy From the Toronto Star Weekly, July 12, 1913 by Annie H. Crone When I awoke the second morning it was with an awful thought of the day before…
Fame and Fortune Came to Canada’s Biggest “King Coal” When He Fought American Trust Elias Rogers Began Life as Farm Lad in York County — Earned First Wages in a Lumber Yard — A Quaker…
From the Globe and Mail, 2003 As a great-grandson of American slaves, Dr. Daniel Hill carried the lessons of universal equality and civil rights in his blood. Founding director of the Ontario Human Rights Commission…
Told by Dr. Hastings, MHO, in his report on slum inspection 22 People Live in cellars; water on the floors MHO would have city expropriate land around city for future city planning From the Toronto…
From the Toronto Star, February 21, 1924 ◊ Note: this article refers to an undated clipping from the Star and harps on the theme of the crucial need for playgrounds where the many children of the…
Torontonians who have vanished to the four corners of the globe From the Toronto Star Weekly, November 29, 1913 By Arthur Barron In nearly every large city and town across the face of the earth…
We visited the historic and elegant Arts & Letters Club, also known as “St. George’s Hall,” on Elm Street west of Yonge Street today. The lovely interior is filled with beautiful works of art by…
“The Lot of the Census Taker in the Ward is Anything But an Easy One” is the title of the first story; its subtitle is “The Foreigners There Have No Idea of the Months of…
Large Meeting Addressed by Candidate and other Speakers From the Globe and Mail, September 14, 1911 Note: Party politics evidently entered into municipal affairs in Toronto of a century ago. This article describes a rousing…
Photographer William James’s superb elevated view of Agnes and Teraulay (Dundas and Bay streets) from an Eaton’s building, 1910, looking northwest towards the Ontario Legislature, with the Teraulay Street Synagogue (Machzikei Hadas, built 1907) in…
Review of Unbuilt Toronto 2: More of the City That Might Have Been, by Mark Osbaldeston (Dundurn) Five years ago Toronto urban researcher Mark Osbaldeston came out with Unbuilt Toronto: A History of the City…
From the Canadian Jewish News, December 2004 What do you get when you put a popular shtetl folk tale into a pot and add some flavourful compositions for full orchestra, rich klezmer sounds, a pinch of Hanukkah seasoning and live narration by Barbara Budd, the Toronto-based actor and co-host of the immensely popular CBC radio…
◊ In light of the passing of Paul Reichmann in Toronto on Friday October 25 at age 83, we bring your attention to this review of the most thorough biography of the Reichman family, Anthony Bianco’s The Reichmanns: Family, Faith, Fortune and The Empire of Olympia & York. As Brooklyn-based author Anthony Bianco chronicles in his…
From the Canadian Jewish News, October 2012 As legions of Barbra Streisand fans pay exorbitant prices (reportedly up to $500) for tickets to see her during her latest (and perhaps last) world tour — which includes a concert at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre on Oct. 23rd 2012 — it seems a fortuitous time for the…
From the Canadian Jewish News, January 13, 2005 Hy Burstein can’t quite explain his passion for riding horses, only that it first hit him as a teenager and that it’s still going strong six decades later. Born to Russian-Jewish immigrants in Toronto in 1928, he recently published Ride ‘em Jewish Cowboy, a book describing his…
BOOK REVIEW: Joe Salsberg: A Life of Commitment, by Gerald Tulchinsky (University of Toronto Press, June 2013) It was said that it would take Joe Salsberg three to five hours to stroll along Spadina Avenue from College to Queen because he couldn’t venture more than a few steps without meeting someone and having a conversation. The…
From the Canadian Jewish News, January 2013 London-based writer Salman Rushdie was happy to sell his novel The Satanic Verses to Viking Penguin in February 1988. But six months after the novel appeared, the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him for his blasphemous insult “against Islam, the Prophet and the Qur’an.” Instantly he became…
Fame and Fortune Came to Canada’s Biggest “King Coal” When He Fought American Trust Elias Rogers Began Life as Farm Lad in York County — Earned First Wages in a Lumber Yard — A Quaker by Faith — Once Ran for Mayor in Toronto From the Toronto Star Weekly, September 20, 1913 Passing along King…
For years the magazines sent him rejection letters, inferring that his short stories about a pair of Jewish cloak and suit makers in New York were about as unmarketable as last year’s suits and dresses. But in the early 1900s Montague Glass broke through to the big time as major American magazines like The Saturday…
New book by Benjamin Kayfetz and Stephen Speisman, published April 2013 by Now and Then Books. With 144 photographs and illustrations, including many exclusive photos from the Stephen Speisman Collection. Order the book at www.nowandthenbookstoronto.com Share this:
Toronto publisher Now and Then Books’s latest title — Only Yesterday: Collected Pieces on the Jews of Toronto, by Benjamin Kayfetz and Stephen A. Speisman — is a prolifically illustrated book featuring 18 evocative articles by two notable historians of Toronto’s Jewish community. Culled from a variety of sources, the pieces in Only Yesterday focus…
The following pages are from the souvenir booklet published by the Hebrew Sick Benefit Society of Toronto in 1935 upon the commemoration of its 35th anniversary. It contains many greetings, advertisements and other items from individual members, often listing family names and other details about family history. Most of the pages are in Yiddish. Each…
◊ Founded 1910 in Toronto, the Hebrew Sick Benefit Society marked its 25th anniversary (silver jubilee) in 1935 and published a commemorative book loaded with names and photos of members and friends. Herewith are some pages from the book with family names and photos on them. Most of the pages are in Yiddish. The pages have…
From The Canadian Jewish News, 2001 SS commander Otto Moll had a tooth-ache, and so visited the dentist of Auschwitz, a Jewish inmate from Dobra, Poland named Berek Jakubowicz. Settling into the chair, the pulled out his revolver and pointed it at the emaciated attendant. “Don’t try anything stupid, dentist,” he warned. “Herr Hauptscharfuhrer,” the…
From the Canadian Jewish News, 1989 Since the recent declaration of peace between Jordan and Israel, and the opening of the Arava border-crossing point between Eilat and Aqaba, it is now a simple matter for visitors to cross freely between these two spectacular Middle Eastern countries. Until these most welcome innovations, tourists frequently faced considerable…
From Tales of North Toronto II, ca 1950 by Lyman B. Jackes North Toronto is, geologically speaking, very different from the remainder of the city. Some eight or nine thousand years ago, what is now North Toronto was the beach land of a great lake. The level of the water is clearly marked today in…
For those who love the classic tunes of the so-called American “songbook” and particularly the timeless melodies and lyrics of George and Ira Gershwin, Michael Feinstein’s new book, The Gershwins and Me: A Personal History in Twelve Songs is much more than heartfelt homage by an outsider or Johnny-come-lately to a remarkable musical era that is…
In this riveting page-turner that reads like a murder mystery thriller, Erik Larson resurrects the legend of a forgotten American psychopathic mass murderer, the cold-blooded H. H. Holmes, and overlays it atop the equally dusty story of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, one of the most impressive achievements of gilded-age America. Satisfying the modern…
The Niagara Falls Visitor and Convention Bureau recently gave me an envelope filled with complimentary admission tickets to local museums and fun houses, and for a couple of hours I was like a kid again as I visited them all in succession. The Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Museum, the Guinness Book of World Records…
From the Canadian Jewish News, 1995 It was, finally, the melody of a Hebrew song that brought Sora Vigorito fully back into the Jewish fold. As a child, she had been tortured at Auschwitz. The Nazis had murdered all her loved ones except her father. She had met him for the first time after the…
From the Toronto Star Weekly, December 31, 1926 by Frederick Griffin You can’t imagine the gigantic United States with all its doughboys and buddies being scared of a woman. It is like a man being scared of a mouse. And yet we have the fact that they were so frightened over there by the presence…
I often get requests from researchers who have seen their family in the 1901, 1911 or 1921 census of Toronto but can’t find the street they were living on a modern map because the street has disappeared or the name was changed. Where was Buchanan Street? Where was Cuttell Place? Where was Alice Street? Etcetera.…
◊ In 1947 the Canadian Jewish Congress published the first of two parts of the book Canadian Jews in World War II. The books were edited by David Rome. The first part deals with Decorations and the second part, which appeared in 1948, memorializes the Casualties. The books were dedicated to the millions of Jews everywhere…
◊ In 1947 the Canadian Jewish Congress published the first of two parts of the book Canadian Jews in World War II. The books were edited by David Rome. The first part deals with Decorations and the second part, which appeared in 1948, memorializes the Casualties. The books were dedicated to the millions of Jews everywhere…
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The following pages are from the souvenir booklet published by the Hebrew Sick Benefit Society of Toronto in 1935 upon the commemoration of its 35th anniversary. It contains many greetings, advertisements and other items from individual members, often listing family names and other details about family history. Most of the pages are in Yiddish. Each…
From Canadian Jewish News, 2003 He was a British soldier and she was a Jewish nurse in British-mandate Palestine: they met in Egypt about 1940. She was killed in an accident and he vowed to let her family know. But how to find them? He — the British soldier — knew that she had been…
Problem: you know your Jewish ancestors or relatives lived in Toronto in 1911 — you even know their street address – yet you can’t find them in the 1911 census. No matter how many times you search, they do not show up in Ancestry.com’s database of the 1911 census. Frequently the problem occurs because a family…
The Canadian Jewish Immigrant Aid Society published the following list of names in the Canadian Jewish Review in 1922 under the heading, “List of Letters from Europe for Relatives in Canada.” See the list below for full details. Butshatsky – Frazek Boxer – Praber from Taravize, Kiever Chia Dviore Grinspoon from Veinberg, Benderske, Chersaner Kvitko,…
This list of names appears in the program of a Negev Dinner Tribute that took place at the Royal York Hotel, November 1956. The list may help genealogists determine the presence of an ancestor or relative in Toronto at that time. The list is five pages long; a thumbnail of each page appears below; please…
For the genealogist, these membership lists from Toronto’s Shaarei Shomayim synagogue may help establish the presence or confirm the identity of a relative or ancestor. The pages have been copied from the 50-year history of the synagogue, published in 1978. The synagogue is located on Glencairn Avenue east of Bathurst Street in midtown Toronto. The…
The following lists originate in the 1938 Dedication Booklet of the Holy Blossom Temple on Bathurst Street, Toronto. (Cover of the booklet is shown at right.) The lists could prove useful for genealogists researching Jewish families in Toronto in the late 1930s. Holy Blossom was then the best-known and probably the largest congregation in Toronto.…
The Federation of Jewish Philanthropies published a partial list of hundreds of donors in the Toronto Star in December 1925. The list, which is reproduced below in full, may be used as a primary genealogical source for those seeking the presence of a person on family in the city at that time. Click to enlarge.…
◊ In the fall of 1910, the Toronto newspapers described certain bureaucratic difficulties that had been discovered in the naturalization applications of hundreds of would-be citizens because an assistant of Justice of the Peace Jacob Cohen had been signing the forms for Cohen instead of Cohen signing his own name himself. Cohen apparently had no knowledge…
THIS Golden Anniversary book was published in 1938 to mark the first 50 years of the Beth Hamidrash Hagadol Chevra Tehillim of Toronto, which was founded in 1887 and moved into the McCaul Street Synagogue about 1905. In the early 1950s it merged with the Goel Tzedec Congregation on University Avenue to become the present Beth…
Panorama of Toronto harbour, 1910 THE following book is a wonderful resource for genealogists who are researching particular families that were in Canada in the early 1930s, and anyone interested in the history of the Jewish community in Canada up to that era. Titled “Canadian Jewry: Prominent Jews of Canada,” it describes itself as “A History…
From the Canadian Jewish News, 1989 Since the recent declaration of peace between Jordan and Israel, and the opening of the Arava border-crossing point between Eilat and Aqaba, it is now a simple matter for visitors to cross freely between these two spectacular Middle Eastern countries. Until these most welcome innovations, tourists frequently faced considerable…
The Niagara Falls Visitor and Convention Bureau recently gave me an envelope filled with complimentary admission tickets to local museums and fun houses, and for a couple of hours I was like a kid again as I visited them all in succession. The Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Museum, the Guinness Book of World Records…
In the ancient fishing village of Capernaum, above the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, visitors may examine a partially reconstructed 2nd- or 3rd-century synagogue and glimpse portions of the underlying remains of an earlier synagogue in which Jesus is said to have preached. The town’s name derives from the Hebrew name K’far Nachum,…
Seeking to extend their colonial holdings in the early 1800s, the major European powers considered the notion of dispatching expeditions through the forbidden Sahara Desert to Timbuktu, the legendary lost city of gold in the heart of Africa. Rumors of the vast wealth of Timbuktu had been circulating ever since 1324, when Mansa Musa (“Emperor…
When your address is Hollywood and you’d like some murals in your synagogue, who are you going to call? L.A.’s Wilshire Boulevard Temple is a magnificent structure, both inside and out. Modeled roughly after the Great Synagogue of Florence, its features seem by turns pure Byzantium and pure Hollywood. Large as a cathedral, it boasts…
In the year 1839, had you been a traveller along the road from Rzeszov to Cracow, you would have been obliged to show a passport in Podgorze, the suburb of Cracow on the Austrian side of the Vistula (“Weichsel”) River. After submitting to a cursory inspection from Austrian officials, your vehicle would have crossed the…
In Place d’Armes, an historic square in Montreal’s Old City, two opposing shrines — a loftily-domed church and a classically-pillared bank — face off against each other, potent symbols of the durable dialectic between religion and commerce that has helped shape this dynamic French-and-English-speaking city founded on an island in the St. Lawrence more than 350…
A special summer of activities highlighting Montreal’s historic Jewish community kicks off June 15 (2000) when a musical version of Mordecai Richler’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz premieres at the Saidye Bronfman Centre in this famously bilingual city. As it happens, the musical is also bilingual: it’s in Yiddish, with simultaneous English translation available for…
James Harris, a 19th-century dairy farmer, brought renown to the southwestern Ontario town of Ingersoll by exhibiting a mammoth piece of locally-produced cheese at world’s fairs in the United States and England. Today, the elegant house that Harris built in 1867 still brings a modest renown to Ingersoll, in its modern incarnation at the heart…
Boasting numerous gems of Georgian architecture, this hilly, former spa town, set in the Peak District of the English Midlands, has been recognized since Roman times for its warm mineral springs — as musicians who venture into the orchestra pit of the Buxton Opera House know only too well. Alec Guiness, Laurence Olivier, Anna Pavlova…
The largest urban park in Canada and the third largest in North America, Vancouver’s Stanley Park is still “half savage and half domestic” as writer James Morris noted a century ago. The historic park offers visitors a compelling mix of dense natural woodlands and well-pruned flower gardens, fierce aboriginal totem poles and a genteel Victorian-style…
Twice a day for nine days each August, 100 propane-fueled hot air balloons rise from 10 sites around the town of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, and drift lazily over the outlying vineyards, apple orchards and fields of maize. At six in the morning and again at six in the evening, weather permitting, a single balloon-meister gives the…
About the time Alberta-born Doug Webber moved to Churchill, Man., with his family in the early Sixties, the remote Hudson Bay community had a population of about 7,500 residents, many of them attached to the NASA space port and the Canadian and American military bases there that have since closed down. “Those were the days…
Situated on a dramatic windswept cliff overlooking Vancouver’s Georgia Strait and the snow-capped peaks of the Coast Mountains, the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology pays homage to the art of the Northwest Coast First Nations in several important and pioneering ways. The museum, which opened in 1976, was designed by internationally renowned Canadian…
With factories, warehouses, train stations and other relics of the past strewn about central Manchester like so many children’s toys, the city where the industrial revolution began has been quietly adapting to the post-industrial age. The place that J.B. Priestley once described as “an Amazonian jungle of blackened brick” has cleaned up its image in…
Insect chop suey, sauteed crickets, and pizzas slices loaded with mealworms were among the hors d’oeuvres served recently at a cocktail party at the Insectarium, a Montreal museum devoted to insects. As a master chef fried locusts in a wok, guests sampled cricket-stuffed mushrooms and acras, a Caribbean pasta dish liberally sprinkled with mealworms. For…
One of the first and most persuasive successes of the League of Nations, the international political body that prefigured the United Nations, was the resolution of the so-called Aland (pronounced “Oh-land”) Islands Question in 1921. This archipelago of about 10,000 islands, only 6,500 of which are large enough to have been named, is usually represented…
Note: Written in the height of the Mubarak years, long before his overthrow during the so-called Arab Spring of 2011. Bartering is a way of life in this bustling, dirty, exotic city of 15 million people. From the moment you arrive, you will be beseeched and cajoled to buy perfume, eat a shishkebab, hire a…
A melancholic mist o’erhangs the main street of Yarmouth, an isolated village of about 7,000 people on Nova Scotia’s extreme southwestern shore. Sixty miles from the coast of Maine, Yarmouth has not changed much since its glory days as a thriving regional seaport in the late 19th century, when it served as a major embarkation point…
The mini-van had made it safely up the red mud slopes and Sam, our well-spoken Thai guide, said we’d get back okay provided the heavens didn’t burst. “If it rains, the road will become a sea of mud,” he said indifferently. “We’d get stuck for sure. Maybe even slide off a cliff.” The sky was…
