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…
Toronto publisher Now and Then Books’s latest title — Only Yesterday: Collected Pieces on the Jews of Toronto, by Benjamin Kayfetz and Stephen A. Speisman — is a prolifically illustrated book featuring 18 evocative articles by two notable historians of Toronto’s Jewish community. Culled from a variety of sources, the pieces in Only Yesterday focus…
From the Toronto Star, November 4, 1909 ◊ This article reflects two problems sometimes faced by members of the city’s Jewish community in regard to the police. The first is selective enforcement of the law, seemingly targeting the Jews (and certainly other minorities probably even more). The second is the specific Sunday blue laws that meant…
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…
From Tales of North Toronto II, ca 1950 by Lyman B. Jackes North Toronto is, geologically speaking, very different from the remainder of the city. Some eight or nine thousand years ago, what is now North Toronto was the beach land of a great lake. The level of the water is clearly marked today in…
From North Toronto Tales, 1948 by Lyman B Jackes There is no section of the present City of Toronto which can claim the historical background that is the heritage of North Toronto. Writers for many years have been prone to stress the fallacy that communal life in these parts commenced in the vicinity of the…
Prelude: Bessie (Besha) Starkman, a Jewish immigrant from Poland, married baker and driver Harry Tobins in Toronto in 1907 and gave birth to daughters Gertrude in 1909 and Lilly (Leah) in 1911. They lived at 92-1/2 Agnes (Dundas) Street in 1909 and 63 Chestnut Street in 1911. In 1912 an Italian immigrant named Rocco Perri…
From The Toronto Star Weekly, November 18, 1926 ◊ Profile of the remarkable Toronto-born entrepreneur Lawrence “Lol” Solman (1866-1931), who was managing director of the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Sunnyside Amusement Park, Hanlan’s Hotel, Hanlan’s Point Amusement Park and the Mutual Street Arena in Toronto; owner of the Toronto Ferry Company and the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball…
Problem: you know your Jewish ancestors or relatives lived in Toronto in 1911 — you even know their street address — yet you can’t find them in the 1911 census. No matter how many times you search, they do not show up in Ancestry.com’s database of the 1911 census. Frequently the problem occurs because a family…
The Canadian Jewish Immigrant Aid Society published the following list of names in the Canadian Jewish Review in 1922 under the heading, “List of Letters from Europe for Relatives in Canada.” See the list below for full details. Butshatsky – Frazek Boxer – Praber from Taravize, Kiever Chia Dviore Grinspoon from Veinberg, Benderske, Chersaner Kvitko,…
