From the Canadian Jewish News, April 2013 Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler, by Trudi Kanter In a voice as fresh, direct and charming as Sylvia Plath’s, the late writer Trudi Kanter tells the story of her journey through war-torn Europe, seeking safe haven for herself and her beloved Walter, two Austrian Jews hoping to…
Review: The Book of Mischief, Steve Stern
by •
The Book of Mischief: New & Selected Stories, by Steve Stern. Published by Graywolf Press. Once, as a young teenager, I had an uncanny, almost otherworldly experience that seemed to free me momentarily from the confines of my familiar world. I’d had an emotional scene at home (the details are forgotten) and needed an escape.…
Canadian Jews fought in American Civil War
by •
Hard to believe, but there were Jews in Toronto and probably Montreal as well who were drawing monthly pensions from the U.S. government as late as 1925 for their participation as soldiers in the American Civil War. An index of Civil War pension recipients indicates that some 4,966 veterans of America’s most sanguinary conflict filed…
Hebrew Sick Benefit Society Silver Jubilee Booklet (1935)
by •
◊ 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…
Obit: Ross Dowson, Trotskyite & mayoral candidate (d. 2002)
by •
From the Globe and Mail, February 2002 As a Trotskyite and leader of the Revolutionary Workers Party, Ross Dowson might have been expected to tarry on the fringes of Canadian political life forever, so it came as a considerable shock to many Torontonians when he drew twenty per cent of the vote in a mayor’s…
Batya Unterschatz, Israel’s One-Woman Search Bureau (2003)
by •
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…
David Crombie reflects on a century of change in Toronto
by •
Exclusive Report, February 3, 2013 Former Toronto Mayor David Crombie easily charmed a full-house audience at a January 30th meeting of the North Toronto Historical Society in Northern District Library. Although Crombie’s advertised topic was “North Toronto 1912, Then and Now,” references to North Toronto were few and far between. But it didn’t seem to…
Toronto shul exhibits photos of Polish shtetl
by •
From the Canadian Jewish News, October 3, 2012 TORONTO — A series of old historic photographs from the Polish shtetl of Staszow has been quietly wowing visitors since being installed in the Stashover-Slipia Synagogue on Sultana Avenue in Toronto. The photographs are to remain on permanent display in the shul’s lobby. “Everyone notices them when they…
Review: Annie Dillard’s For the Time Being
by •
From the Canadian Jewish News, ca 2001 For The Time Being (Knopf, $22) is Annie Dillard’s personal meditation on eternity, morality, mortality, the nature of divine justice and other philosophical issues. The book is a spiralling intellectual investigation that moves from the birth ward of a modern hospital to an archaeological dig in China to…
Book review: The Dentist of Auschwitz
by •
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…
