Ben Weider, who with his brother Joe founded a billion-dollar bodybuilding empire and helped launch Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career in the United States, died October 17 (2008) of heart failure in his native city of Montreal at the age of 85. Weider was also a collector of rare Napoleonic artifacts, and donated some sixty valuable pieces…
Category: Canadiana
Obit: Canadian arts patron Bluma Appel (1919-2007)
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Known for her patronage of the arts and her dedication to social causes, Bluma Appel died of cancer July 15 (2007) in a Toronto hospital. She was 86. Born in Montreal, Appel supported many arts and cultural organizations as well as individual artists. An officer of the Order of Canada, she was also the founder of…
Toronto sculptor Sorel Etrog helps commemorate D-Day landing
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Sorel Etrog, one of Canada’s most notable sculptors, recently attended a ceremony in Reviers, a town along the Normandy coast of France, at which one of his works was unveiled to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Canadian landing on D-Day. The sculpture, called “Sunbird II,” is made of bronze, weighs about 900 pounds, and…
A compendium of Canadian Jews in the arts
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Note: this compendium of Canadian Jews in the arts appeared in a special supplement of the Canadian Jewish News in 2005. * * * Jewish poets were composing lines and Jewish painters composing scenes long before Canada was founded; and, as evidenced in the Canadian Jewish New’s weekly Eye on Arts column, there is no…
Obit: media mogul Izzy Asper (1932-2003)
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Israel “Izzy” Asper, the Winnipeg-based media mogul who turned a single television station into an international communications empire worth more than a billion dollars, died in Winnipeg on October 7, 2003 at the age of 71. The founder and chairman of the CanWest Global media empire, which operated a third national TV network and published…
Community mourns passing of Pierre Elliott Trudeau (2000)
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Note: This obituary appeared in the London Jewish Chronicle shortly after Trudeau’s passing on September 28, 2000. Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who died last week at the age of 80, is being remembered as a staunch defender of minority rights and a friend of the Jewish community. Trudeau served as prime minister…
Two books on the Jews of Montreal
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From the Ghetto to the Main: The Story of the Jews of Montreal, by Joe King, is a masterly treatment of more than two and half centuries of Jewish history in what was once the largest Jewish community in the Dominion of Canada. King sets the stage for his subject in five chapters that sketch…
Canadian Jewry: Prominent Jews of Canada (1933) — Section E
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Canadian Jewry: Prominent Jews of Canada (1933) — Section A (pages 1 to 59) Canadian Jewry: Prominent Jews of Canada (1933) — Section B (pages 60 to 125) Canadian Jewry: Prominent Jews of Canada (1933) — Section C (pages 126 to 191) Canadian Jewry: Prominent Jews of Canada (1933) — Section D (pages 192 to 245) Canadian Jewry: Prominent Jews…
Canadian Jewry: Prominent Jews of Canada (1933) — Section D
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Canadian Jewry: Prominent Jews of Canada — Section A (pages 1 to 59) Canadian Jewry: Prominent Jews of Canada — Section B (pages 60 to 125) Canadian Jewry: Prominent Jews of Canada — Section C (pages 126 to 191) Canadian Jewry: Prominent Jews of Canada — Section D (below) (pages 192 to 245) Canadian Jewry: Prominent Jews of Canada…
Obit: judge and sailing devotee Livius Sherwood (1923-2002)
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Ottawa’s Brittania Yacht Club recently named the entry to its harbour Sherwood Port and erected a plaque there in honour of Livius Sherwood, the provincial court judge and internationally-known champion of sailing, who died June 7 in his native Ottawa at the age of 78. In the courtroom Mr. Sherwood was known for his patience,…
