Through a series of colourful panels, photographs, display cases, clothing racks, and stand-alone artifacts such as a 1917 Singer treadle industrial sewing machine, the exhibition, A Common Thread, which opened recently in the Reuben and Helene Dennis Museum of Beth Tzedec Synagogue, offers a lively and compelling look at the history of Toronto’s garment industry from the early…
Category: Jewish Toronto
McCaul Synagogue Golden Anniversary Book (1938)
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THIS Golden Anniversary book was published in 1938 to mark the first 50 years of the Beth Hamidrash Hagadol Chevra Tehillim of Toronto, which was founded in 1887 and moved into the McCaul Street Synagogue about 1905. In the early 1950s it merged with the Goel Tzedec Congregation on University Avenue to become the present Beth…
Canadian Jewry: Prominent Jews of Canada (1933)
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Panorama of Toronto harbour, 1910 THE following book is a wonderful resource for genealogists who are researching particular families that were in Canada in the early 1930s, and anyone interested in the history of the Jewish community in Canada up to that era. Titled “Canadian Jewry: Prominent Jews of Canada,” it describes itself as “A History…
Bar mitzvah takes family back to old Ostrovtzer Synagogue
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Nathan Friedman-Burley’s bar mitzvah was a walk down memory lane for his family. The event took place at the Cecil Community Centre at 58 Cecil Street in downtown Toronto, once the home of the vibrant Anshei Ostrovtzer Synagogue where Friedman-Burley’s great-grandfather, Israel Nachman Weinberg, was one of the founders in 1922 and the first president,…
Toronto company boasts 50 years, four generations
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Long before home computers and the Toronto subway, Cooper Office Supply Co. Limited was established at 379 Queen Street West in Toronto. Celebrating its 50th year in business and into the fourth generation of Coopers, the landmark location continues its tradition of excellence, says David Cooper, president of the family business. His father, Jack Cooper,…
Drildzer Society, founded 1934, celebrates anniversary
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Some 120 people recently celebrated the Drildzer Congregation and Society’s 70th anniversary, including a number who were among the group’s early founders. The second, third and fourth generations were also represented at the banquet, held at the Pride of Israel Synagogue, with Rochelle Sufrin, daughter of Jack Stopper, as the evening’s chair. After meeting informally…
Goldblatt family reunion is an annual event
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Jacob Norman, the patriarch of the Goldblatt family, came to Canada at the turn of the century. He began his first business, dealing in scrap metal and glass in Hamilton, with a horse and buggy. Eventually, he founded International Iron and Metal. Goldblatt brought many of his relatives to Canada and assisted some of them…
Volunteer has devoted more than 60 years to Stashover
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Albert (Al) Wise, 90, has devoted most of his life to the landsleit of Stashov, the town in Poland where his family lived and where he was born in 1914. His father, Benjamin Weisberg, a tailor, came to Canada in 1920, and two years later, he brought his wife, Al, and Al’s brother and sister.…
Songwriter is remembered for I’ll Never Smile Again
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Many Canadians do not know that one of the world’s greatest pop songs of all time, I’ll Never Smile Again, was written by a Canadian, Ruth Lowe, more than 60 years ago. Although the song has been recorded by famous orchestras and well-known vocalists, it was not until recently (2004) that attention was once again…
Profile: centenarian Sam Cohen (2005)
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Retired regimental Sgt.-Maj. Sam Cohen, who celebrates his 100th birthday on August 12 (2005), defies all medical logic. “He eats all the wrong foods, such as pastrami with fat and fried foods, and he smokes more than a package of unfiltered Sweet Caporal cigarettes a day,” says his daughter Theresa Strom. “We have to order…
