THE Toronto Telegram reported on Friday June 1, 1928 the construction of these six buildings that would considerably alter Toronto’s skyline. Here is the caption information to this large illustration: * * * Great New Structures Pierce Toronto’s Sky Line Cost Millions to Construct Never in the history of Toronto has there been any year…
Month: December 2011
1911 profile of Mrs. Jacobs, wife of Holy Blossom rabbi
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Note: The following article, which appeared in the Toronto Star Weekly of April 15, 1911, highlights the various activities of Mrs. Jacobs, wife of the Rabbi Solomon Jacobs of the city’s most prominent Jewish congregation, Holy Blossom, then situated at 97 Bond Street. * * * Mrs. Jacobs, Leader Among Jewish Women, and Working Girls’…
Toronto’s Tom Sandler, photographer to the Royals
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Although Tom Sandler’s family lived in England in the late 1800s, none of his relatives ever came into contact with royalty until he became the British royal family’s photographer of choice during their frequent visits to Canada. The Toronto camera pro’s relationship with the royals blossomed from his volunteer involvement, beginning more than a decade…
Obit: Ben Weider, built bodybuilding empire (1923-2008)
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Ben Weider, who with his brother Joe founded a billion-dollar bodybuilding empire and helped launch Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career in the United States, died October 17 (2008) of heart failure in his native city of Montreal at the age of 85. Weider was also a collector of rare Napoleonic artifacts, and donated some sixty valuable pieces…
Obit: Canadian arts patron Bluma Appel (1919-2007)
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Known for her patronage of the arts and her dedication to social causes, Bluma Appel died of cancer July 15 (2007) in a Toronto hospital. She was 86. Born in Montreal, Appel supported many arts and cultural organizations as well as individual artists. An officer of the Order of Canada, she was also the founder of…
Sigmund Freud House and other Viennese Jewish landmarks
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The November 29 (1993) issue of Time Magazine featured a likeness of the founder of psychoanalysis on its cover with the caption, “Is Freud dead?” in conscious parody of the magazine’s well-remembered “Is God Dead?” cover of April 1966. Inside, several articles asserted that recent chemical discoveries and psychoanalytic treatment modalities of dubious value have…
Vered Hagalil, popular ranch north of the Sea of Galilee
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Yehudi Avni has a dream — to mount one of the 20 horses at Vered Hagalil, his horse ranch and guest farm north of the Sea of Galilee, and ride around the lake and through the valley to Amman, the capital of Jordan. “When peace will come, and if it will be a real peace,…
Israeli infiltrated Germany’s neo-Nazi movement
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Having boldly infiltrated the top echelons of Germany’s neo-Nazi movement, former Israeli paratrooper Yaron Svoray felt more than mildly uncomfortable the day in 1992 that he sat with about 30 neo-Nazis in the woods and an elderly ex-SS guard put a gun to his ear, screaming, “Juden! Juden!” Quickly, Svoray leaned forward, out of range…
Horses on Yonge Street bridge below Davisville
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No, it isn’t an advertisement for Marlboro Cigarettes. Those dozen horses, seen in silhouette on an old railroad bridge that spans Yonge Street below Davisville, are the work of 34-year-old site-specific sculptor Robert Sprachman of Toronto. Entitled The Iron Horse, the sculpture consists of 12 life-sized silhouettes of horses arranged on the defunct Beltline Railroad…
Stamped Out: philatelic and postal items from Nazi era
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Henry Schwab, a German-born Jew who emigrated to the United States in 1936. enlisted in the U.S. Army and reached the gates of Buchenwald concentration camp just days after its liberation in April 1945. “It was a day never to be forgotten, coming face to face with some of the horrors,” he recalls in a…
