From the Toronto Star, September 8, 1938 Charges of petty thieving by peddlers were today discussed by the civic works committee. Alderman Salsberg demanded an explanation from the street cleaning commissioner, Harold Bradley, of his reported statement that licensed peddlers were guilty of such misdemeanors. He said that such statements, emanating from the head of…
Tag: JEWISH TORONTO
Jewish Voters Out in Force for Liberal Maguire (1911)
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Large Meeting Addressed by Candidate and other Speakers From the Globe and Mail, September 14, 1911 Note: Party politics evidently entered into municipal affairs in Toronto of a century ago. This article describes a rousing meeting held in support of Liberal Alderman Alfred Maguire at the Lyric Yiddish Theatre in 1911; Maguire would serve as…
Globe notices sharp increase of Jews in Toronto (1910)
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Photographer William James’s superb elevated view of Agnes and Teraulay (Dundas and Bay streets) from an Eaton’s building, 1910, looking northwest towards the Ontario Legislature, with the Teraulay Street Synagogue (Machzikei Hadas, built 1907) in foreground and the Lyric Yiddish Theatre in a former church at centre right. This is an excellent view of the…
Yiddish Youth Concert, Massey Hall, 1918
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The Yiddish Yugend Farein or Yiddish Young People’s Organization of Toronto sponsored a Sukkot Concert at Massey Hall on September 25, 1918. Below is the 24-page program, along with a list of names of people and companies mentioned. Note that the booklet’s printed pagination was incorrect and that the order of the pages is correct…
Dancing at Jewish Wedding Violates Sunday Blue Laws (1912)
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From the Toronto Star, February 19, 1912 Shall Dancing Be Allowed in Civic Halls on Sunday? The Caretaker Could Not Put a Stop to It Mild weather has anticipated the action of the City Council in prohibiting Sunday tobogganing, but the Lord’s Day observance question is to the fore in another aspect. Is dancing to…
Hucksters versus housewives in Kensington market (1925)
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Note: This is an early and very colourfully written article about what would become a city institution, Kensington Market. It is described as being in “the Ward,” but technically it lies outside of the Ward’s unofficial western boundary of University Avenue or McCaul Street; what the author really meant to say was that it was…
New book offers pieces by Kayfetz, Speisman on Toronto Jews
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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…
Toronto’s first Jewish nurse writes of early Toronto
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Memoirs of Dorothy Goldstick Dworkin In the following article, the former Dorothy Goldstick relates her experiences working as a nurse and midwife in Toronto’s fledging Jewish community from 1907 to 1911, when thousands of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and the Russian Pale were arriving in the city each year. Below, Dworkin profiled in 1968;…
Police Raid Matzah Factory (1909)
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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…
Toronto’s junk trade worth $10 million a year (1913)
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From the Toronto Star weekly October 4, 1913 Some men who began with the bag over their shoulders now worth around $1 million — Old iron sold to the foundaries to be recast — Bones made into glue, fertilizers, and used in refining sugar – Paper and rags go to the Mills — Nothing is…
