From the Toronto Star Weekly, August 1914 An artist and photographer for the Toronto Star Weekly captured these “unprecedented scenes” in Toronto in August 1914 as the city and the nation prepared for war in Europe. The above drawing (based on a photograph) shows recruits drilling outside Toronto’s Armouries. The photograph below showed more recruits drilling at the…
My Mother’s Secret, by J. L. Witterick, and other titles So many books, so little time. In my years of reviewing books, I have always endeavoured to focus not only on works from great international writers (Ozick, Englander, Stern, Roth, et al) but also on works from lesser known writers from our own national community.…
Review of KRAKOW: A Guide to Jewish Genealogy, by Geoffrey M. Weisgard in association with Gesher Galicia. Softcover, 114 pages. Published 2011, www.geshergalicia.org Like JewishGen and Jewish Records Indexing Poland, Gesher Galicia is one of the great success stories of the Jewish genealogical world, offering a wealth of highly useful and easily accessible information and…
Recollections of Old Timer Forty Years Ago John Heenan ‘Tended Bar’ at the N.E. Corner of Front Street Many Changes Noticed Now — But the Sign Board of ‘Heenan’s Place’ Is Still to Be Seen From the Toronto Evening Telegram, November 2, 1928 John Heenan, veteran employee of the Walker House, whose trim grey uniform,…
From Canadian Jewish News, July 2013 Toronto psychologist Dr. Edna Magder was just a baby when the Nazis deported her grandmother from Vienna, but she knows it wasn’t the first time the Nazis had come to her grandmother’s door. A group of drunken Nazi soldiers had previously visited her grandmother — Theresia Hanni Brodi —…
In this riveting page-turner that reads like a murder mystery thriller, Erik Larson resurrects the legend of a forgotten American psychopathic mass murderer, the cold-blooded H. H. Holmes, and overlays it atop the equally dusty story of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, one of the most impressive achievements of gilded-age America. Satisfying the modern…
S.W. Jacobs, K.C., M.P., Draws the Attention of the Members of Parliament to the Fact That Jews Have Been Murdered in Poland Even After the Treaty With Poland Had Been Signed From the Canadian Jewish Chronicle, September 19, 1919 Ottawa, Sept. 12 — Two resolutions calling for approval of compacts entered into by certain of…
They Were Used for Amusement by Dr. A. M. Rosebrugh, Who Secured Instruments from Dr. Bell, Inventor Wires Ran on Poles of Fire Alarm System Dr. Rosebrugh Tested a Line to Hamilton and Started the First Telephone Company in Ontario From the Toronto Star Weekly, September 9, 1922 By Knight N. Day Toronto has had…
From the Globe and Mail, 1999 ◊ I wrote this article for the Globe’s Ideas & Beliefs column in 1999, a mere six years after Rabbi Schneerson’s death, when the Lubavitch world seemed to be pulling apart over the issue of his messianic status and who would be his successor. Don’t know what’s happened…
◊ In 1947 the Canadian Jewish Congress published the first of two parts of the book Canadian Jews in World War II. The books were edited by David Rome. The first part deals with Decorations and the second part, which appeared in 1948, memorializes the Casualties. The books were dedicated to the millions of Jews everywhere…
