From Canadian Jewish News, 1982 Marriage may be likened to a city besieged: those without despair of getting in, those within despair of getting out. – Abraham Drayanov I have often wondered who makes couples happier, the rabbis who marry them or the lawyers who obtain their divorce. But this sentiment notwithstanding, the smoothest of…
◊ Cynthia Gasner, who died in Toronto on November 9, 2022, touched the lives of many. This profile of her appeared in The Canadian Jewish News in 1986 after she was honoured as one of nine “Women of Valour” by State of Israel Bonds, Women’s Division. From the Canadian Jewish News, 1986 An admitted “super…
The Neu-Raussnitz Tax Book by Dr. Heinrich Flesch, translated, adapted and with an introduction by Patrick Gordis & Henry Wellisch Some 90 years ago, a Moravian rabbi and historian, Dr. Heinrich Flesch (1875-1942), annotated a list of Jews from Neu-Raussnitz, Moravia, who paid taxes in 1808, then used the annotated list as a basis for a…
Report from the Canadian Jewish Chronicle, 1919 Ukraine, the Scene of Wholesale Murder Since Last November. Whole Communities Wiped Out. Troops of Petliura and Grigorieff Principal Culprits. Bolshevik Troops Kill Many in Spite of Rigorous Measures of Their Commanders Authentic reports have reached this country of a series of massacres which have raged in the…
by Ben Lappin (from Commentary, 1955) Spadina Avenue, the main street of the needle trades in Toronto, looks very much the same as it did ten, twenty, thirty years ago. The same kind of old-fashioned haggling still goes on between the employers and the handful of tense harassed business agents – former pressers, operators, and…
by Irving B Rosen, MD, FRCSC Society doctors, like Harley Street specialists, evoke the image of the sought after, affluent doyen of their calling, courted by the high and mighty, who never question their high fees. Toronto had its society doctors who held sway for about fifty years from about 1900 to 1950. I became…
Note: In 2012, Beth Lida commissioned Bill Gladstone to write a detailed history of the congregation since its founding in 1912. While the 44-page booklet is now out of print, it is still available in PDF format, and easily downloadable for free from the link below. From the Introduction: In Toronto, as in many cities…
One century ago this summer (2022), the Canadian Zionist Convention drew delegates to Ottawa from all parts of Canada. As the Shanghai-China-based newspaper Israel’s Messenger reported, a keynote speech was given by our prime minister, MacKenzie King. “The address of Premier King has created a deep impression,” the newspaper reported. “It was punctuated with bursts…
