David Vanek, a retired provincial criminal court judge, has produced a highly readable volume of memoirs that illuminates his family’s early history in the Toronto area, numerous historical matters pertaining to the local Jewish community, and his 21-year career on the Ontario bench. Fulfilment: Memoirs of a Criminal Court Judge (Dundurn Press, 1999) shows the…
Category: Toronto
Rosalie Sharp’s ‘Improbable Life’
by •
Rosalie Wise Sharp, a daughter of Polish immigrants, always felt that heaven had mismatched her with her parents, Joseph and Ydessa Wise, who ran a dry goods store on north Yonge Street at a time when few Jews lived in north Toronto. Later, fate matched her up with husband Isadore Sharp, founder of the international…
Growing up Catholic in Jewish ‘hood
by •
Ted Schmidt, a Catholic educator who edits the independent Catholic Times newspaper, has written and published a book in which he recounts his experiences “growing up Jewish” on Palmerston Blvd. in the Bloor-Bathurst neighbourhood of downtown Toronto. With Shabbes Goy: a Catholic Boyhood on a Jewish Street in a Protestant City (2001) Schmidt has laid down an engaging…
Barney Danson saga
by •
Barney Danson, who served as the Member of Parliament for York North from 1968 to 1979, has published a book of memoirs, Not Bad For A Sergeant, that is must reading for anyone interested in Canadian politics and the Trudeau legacy in particular. Jewish readers will find the book especially illuminating because of the light…
The Tailor’s Daughter
by •
Writers who dedicate their pens to preserving community history generally do so as a labour of love, knowing their literary efforts will probably not capture a large reading audience nor generate large royalty cheques. Over the last decade, Miriam Bassin Chinsky has revisited the lush vineyards of her north Toronto childhood to write a series…
A Toronto doc’s memoir
by •
Barnet Berris, born in Toronto in 1921, became the first Jewish doctor appointed to the full-time staff of the University of Toronto’s department of medicine in 1951. In Medicine: My Story (U. of T. Press, 2002), Dr. Berris tells the story of his career. The book elegantly details the changes he observed in medicine during 46…
The City Man: Fine novel of ’30s Toronto
by •
Howard Akler has made an auspicious literary debut with his first novel, The City Man (Coach House Books), a crisply written tale that conjures up the look and feel of Toronto in the ‘30s. The story focuses on Toronto Star reporter Eli Morenz who, freshly returned from a convalescence in the country, writes a riveting…
Consolation: New Glimpses of Old Toronto
by •
If you’re a Toronto lover like me, you’re bound to enjoy and marvel over Michael Redhill’s novel Consolation (Anchor Canada), which delivers a gripping human story, elegantly and poetically told, and a grittily realistic literary portrait of 1850s Toronto that is so well executed that it shines. In alternating chapters, Consolation artfully knits together two…
