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…
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;…
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…
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…
The following pages are from the souvenir booklet published by the Hebrew Sick Benefit Society of Toronto in 1935 upon the commemoration of its 35th anniversary. It contains many greetings, advertisements and other items from individual members, often listing family names and other details about family history. Most of the pages are in Yiddish. Each…
From the Canadian Jewish News, October 3, 2012 TORONTO — A series of old historic photographs from the Polish shtetl of Staszow has been quietly wowing visitors since being installed in the Stashover-Slipia Synagogue on Sultana Avenue in Toronto. The photographs are to remain on permanent display in the shul’s lobby. “Everyone notices them when they…
From the Canadian Jewish News, May 3, 1963 by Mordecai Hirshenson Who was the Mrs. Elisa Robinson who bequeathed more than a half-a-million dollars to nine Jewish institutions in her will which was probated recently? Not many Jewish Torontonians of this generation can recall her and her husband, nor their parents. But in the smaller…
From the Globe and Mail, September 17, 1955 Have you ever wondered about the meaning of those mysterious looking clusters of Hebrew letters inscribed over the doorways of Toronto’s synagogues? Only rarely is an English translation provided side by side, for like so many names, they have acquired a personality and identity of their own…
From the Canadian Jewish News, January 30, 1992 Florence Hutner, who guided the United Jewish Welfare Fund through problem-filled war and postwar years as its executive director in the 1940s and beyond, died January 6 [1992] at Baycrest Hospital at the age of eighty-four. She was the first woman to head a major Jewish organization…
From The Toronto Star Weekly, July 1913 Zeth Slavin had to flee the Czar’s domains because his customers were massacred — Now he sells papers at corner of Yonge & Adelaide — Sorry he did not come sooner By Gregory Clark Zeth Slavin’s face is well known to most people whose work brings them to…
