The heading, Have Yichus, Will Travel, might have appeared above the following notice which attracted the attention of the city’s Jewish community when it ran in The Toronto Star on various dates in 1957 and the late 1950s: “GRAND RABBI J. RABINOWICZ. “Kishinower Rabbi, one of the world famous rabbis from Europe, now in New…
A look back at the CJN from more than 50 years ago: From the Canadian Jewish News, March 6, 1974 Spry Ben Sherman has no thought of retiring, and plans to work a full day in the hardware store he founded 55 years ago, the Canadian Jewish News reported in March 1974. Sherman’s family wasn’t…
From Globe, September 24, 1901 SACRED SCROLL THREATENED Excited Jews Besiege a Burning Synagogue The sacred scroll in the Austrian Jewish Synagogue in Chestnut street, containing the laws as set down by Moses, was threatened with destruction at 1.30 o’clock this morning. Fire broke out in the rear of the edifice and when the Jews…
Seeking the Fabled City: the Canadian Jewish Experience, by Allan Levine (McClelland & Stewart) Proficient, prolific, and preternaturally talented, Winnipeg-based historian Allan Levine has produced a robust new history of the Jewish experience in Canada that seems both compelling and fresh. Seeking the Fabled City — the title comes from a line by the late…
From the Canadian Jewish News, 2017 From the moment in 1961 that he stepped into the role, Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut was always much more than rabbi of the esteemed historic Reform congregation, Holy Blossom Temple of Toronto. It was entirely Toronto’s gain and St. Paul Minnesota’s loss when Holy Blossom enticed Rabbi Plaut here,…
by Ben Lappin (from Commentary, 1955) Spadina Avenue, the main street of the needle trades in Toronto, looks very much the same as it did ten, twenty, thirty years ago. The same kind of old-fashioned haggling still goes on between the employers and the handful of tense harassed business agents – former pressers, operators, and…
The extraordinary story of Eli Hyman first came to my attention with the following notice that appeared in the Toronto Daily Star of December 20, 1902: * * * WILL BE BURIED SUNDAY Rabbi Jacobs Will Conduct the Funeral from Holy Blossom Synagogue The funeral of the late Eli Hyman, the Jewish miser who died in…
One good thing about matzah is that even after the passage of many months, it often tastes no more stale coming out of the box than when it was first baked. In a parallel vein, I hope the following tales concerning an early matzah factory in Toronto won’t seem too stale even if they go…
Increase of Jewish Citizens Astounding From The Toronto Star Weekly, February 24, 1912 Is the problem—for a problem there assuredly is—in connection with Toronto’s Ghetto sufficiently realized by Torontonians in general? Ten years ago the Jewish population in the whole of Ontario only numbered just over five thousand people. To-day there are something like twenty…
From the Canadian Jewish News, February 2015 In late 1947 and early 1948, representatives of the Canadian garment industry organized what became known as the Tailor Project, a plan to select more than 2,200 skilled tailors from the Displaced Person camps of Europe and give them jobs and housing in Canada. The Tailor Project had…
