In Memorium: Irving Ungerman, born February 1, 1923, died October 27, 2015 From the Beth Sholom Bulletin, June 2010 Irving Ungerman remembers the way it was growing up in the old Kensington market neighbourhood and being attacked by bullies because he was Jewish. “Guys used to hit me all the time — I was a…
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…
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…
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…
More than half a century after the presidency of John F. Kennedy ended in a tragic hail of bullets, Ottawa historian and university professor Andrew Cohen has mined some powerful but previously neglected material on JFK and written a book that could change the shape of his political legacy and legend in substantial ways. In…
Seven years ago, as Toronto author Alison Pick began researching and writing what would become her prize-winning novel Far to Go, she realized that the seeds of two different projects — one a fictional manuscript, the other a closely allied memoir — were struggling for dominance within her mind. Giving priority to the novel, she…
From Growing Up Jewish: Canadians tell their own stories (1997) My earlier recollection goesback to the very early 1920s, sitting on the stoop of our dry-goods store on Spadina Avenue and Baldwin Street (southeast corner), watching the Sunday evening church parade go by. These were the strollers emerging from two nearby Christian churches, the Western Congregational Church, just…
Part One in a series by a prominent Canadian Jewish bachelor By Anonymous (originally serialized in 1919) Foreword I hope that none who read this chronicle of my adventures into the field of pro-matrimony (if I may so call it) will feel that I am writing in a spirit of boastfulness. On the contrary, I…
From The Canadian Jewish News, January 2014 Canadian, Israeli-born writer Ayelet Tsabari, whose first book of short stories The Best Place on Earth was recently published by HarperCollins of Toronto, writes with amazing intensity not only about modern Israelis, but also about the small Mizrachi (“Eastern”) Jewish minority in Israel; her grandparents came from Yemen.…
Those who grapple with translating the Russian-era Polish-Jewish civil documents (births, marriages, deaths) may find the attached document of value. It is a list of Jewish names in Russian printed characters on one side with their Polish equivalents on the other. I often refer to this list when wanting to check what a Jewish name…
