Mama and Her Mitzvahs: Stories and Reminiscences, by Sophie Stransman (2002) provides a loving, anecdotal portrait of a golden-spirited woman who, with her husband, operated a small dry-goods store in the heart of Toronto’s Cabbagetown during the Depression. Rachel and Elia Siegel were the proprietors of Siegel’s Groceteria, an authentic mom-and-pop operation that stood on…
Tag: canada
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…
Oral bio of Richler
by •
When Michael Posner began his oral biography of Mordecai Richler, his plan was to assemble a collection of entertaining anecdotes about the legendary Montreal writer, but soon realized that psychological insights about Richler would produce a more revealing portrait. “When I began to do the interviews, I thought, ‘This could be more than just anecdotes,…
Leonard Cohen bio
by •
It seems so long ago that Leonard Cohen, the gravelly-voiced songwriter-poet from Westmount, first won international acclaim with compelling songs like Suzanne and So Long, Marianne, at once deeply romantic and mystical. With ten books of poetry, two novels and a dozen albums to his credit, and three more tribute albums of his songs in…
The ‘Dangerous’ Emma Goldman
by •
In April 2001, the Toronto Jewish Film Festival screened a 42-minute documentary on Emma Goldman, the legendary American-Jewish anarchist and feminist who spent several periods of exile in Toronto. Coleman Romalis’s film Emma Goldman: The Anarchist Guest presented a refreshing and overdue account of Goldman’s productive years in Toronto. A recent book pays more attention…
Mordechai Richler bio
by •
A new critical biography of Mordecai Richler by Reinhold Kramer, a Manitoba English professor, offers an engaging, thorough and microscopic examination of the life and letters of the iconic Canadian Jewish novelist and essayist, complete with some penetrating psychological insights. In researching Mordecai Richler: Leaving St. Urbain (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008), Kramer attained access to…
The Wickedly Witty Sondra Gotlieb
by •
The title of Sondra Gotlieb’s latest book, Dogs, Houses, Gardens, Food and Other Addictions (McArthur & Co., 2002) is an accurate summary of its contents, and only a writer as comically gifted as Gotlieb could turn this seeming dross into gold. A native Winnipegger who became the famous “Wife of” a Canadian diplomat, Gotlieb is…
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…
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…
Morgentaler: a ‘difficult hero’
by •
As Catherine Dunphy was in the early stages of researching her newly-published biography Morgantaler: A Difficult Hero, Canada’s well-known abortion crusader asked her over lunch if she would like to “witness a procedure.” A short time later, Dunphy was chatting at Morgantaler’s Toronto clinic with a stripper named Dominique, eleven weeks pregnant, as the doctor…
