Tag: toronto

Christian missions proselytized Jews in ‘the Ward’

From the Canadian Jewish News, April 2015 Having recently marked its 25th anniversary, the organization Jews for Judaism continues to counter the activities of missionary groups in Toronto that deceptively target Jews for conversion. However, Christian missions to the Jews are certainly nothing new in this city. In the era before the First World War, a…

Is Toronto Troubled by ‘Too Much Sunday’? (1914)

Above: Some 3,500 Torontonians protested at Massey Hall when City Council refused to allow the use of slides at High Park in February 1912. (Star Weekly) A Correspondent Puts Up an Argument for a Freer Sunday With Less Restraints and Less Police Espionage and More Open Air Toronto Star Weekly, September 1914 With the opening of…

Obit: Barnet Markson (1914-2014)

From Beth Sholom Bulletin, Summer 2014 Barnet Markson, who died in March 2014 just three weeks shy of his 100th birthday, was a founding member of Beth Sholom Congregation. Born in Toronto in 1914, Barney became a pharmacist and built a store, Markson’s Pharmacy, at the corner of Westover Hill Road and Eglinton in 1945,…

Landsmanschaft societies stretched forth their helping hands

From the Canadian Jewish News, Spring 2015 In a series of articles in the Canadian Jewish News about four decades ago, the late CJN columnist J. B. Salsberg reminisced with great affection about the “Apter Shteeble” in downtown Toronto that he had frequented in his youth during the First World War. The Apter Society —…

Benjamin Brown: Restoring an architect’s legacy 

From Canadian Jewish News, April 2015 Toronto architect Benjamin Brown (1890-1974) designed many elegant edifices across the city, including the Balfour and Tower Buildings on Spadina Avenue, the former Primrose Club on Willcocks Avenue, the former Beth Jacob Synagogue on Henry Street, the Hermant Building (eastern tower and annex) in Dundas Square, and scores of…

Praise & Admiration for Toronto Police (1903)

TORONTO POLICEMEN ARE MODELS OF POLITENESS Their Clubs Are Merely Ornamental, But They Manage to Enforce the Laws – How a Police Court Hearing is Conducted – The Finest are the Guides, Counselors and Friends of Our Canadian Neighbors – Not Like Pittsburgh. by Henry Jones Ford Pittsburgh Gazette, July 12, 1903 Above: Newpaper photo from Colonel…

Exhibition Of 1889 Only One He Missed

Ex-Alderman Edward Galley Has Been Going to Them Since the Year 1852 HOW C.N.E. HAS GROWN SINCE THE EARLY DAYS First Held in a Few Tents in Boulton’s Fields — Big Display of Patchwork Quilts from Toronto Star Weekly, September 9, 1922 By William Lewis Edmonds Toronto can boast of having at least one citizen…

Mount Sinai Hospital had humble beginnings

When Dr. Daniel Drucker of Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital receives the US$150,000 Manpei-Suzuki prize for groundbreaking diabetes research this February (2015), he will be only the latest in a long parade of medical researchers at the world-famous institution to be recognized for their excellence. A researcher engaged in a different sort of quest — probing…

Landsmanshaft and Jewish mutual benefit societies of Toronto

The following is an abridgement of a talk that Bill Gladstone gave to the Jewish Genealogical Society of Canada (Toronto) on March 28, 2012. Definition A landsmanshaft is a group consisting, at least initially, of Jewish immigrants who came from the same village, town, country or region in Eastern Europe or the Russian Empire. The…