Beth Torah Congregation recently celebrated its 40th anniversary with a gala dinner at the synagogue, near Lawrence Avenue and Dufferin Street. The celebration honoured its founding members and welcomed its new members. Jack Hauer, founding president of the congregation, said that as he looks back to the humble beginnings of the congregation, he is “overwhelmed…
Irish rabbi’s descendants gather in Dublin
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The Leventon family reunion, held recently in Dublin, Ireland, brought together 127 direct descendants — including 28 from Canada — of Rosa and Rabbi Israel Leventon, who lived in the 19th century. Rabbi Leventon served as the last spiritual leader of Dublin’s Mary’s Abbey Synagogue, which closed in 1892, and he was the first spiritual…
Obit: Jerry Goodis. founding member of Travellers (2002)
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Jerry Goodis, one of Canada’s most famous advertising personalities and a founding member of The Travellers, perhaps Canada’s most well-known folk music group, died of cancer Nov. 8 (2002) in Chilliwack, B.C., at age 73. The son of a Toronto tailor who became a union organizer in the needle trade, Goodis was active in the…
Roy family clan gathers in Toronto for reunion
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The Roy clan can trace its roots back to 1860. Fifty members of the Roy family came together recently in Toronto for a reunion and a celebration of Marmel (Mary) Roy’s 75th birthday, who came from Israel. Farley Mernick, whose late mother Belle Mernick was Marmel’s sister, planned the reunion and served as its emcee.…
Village Shul celebrates its bar mitzvah (2003)
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The Village Shul and Aish HaTorah Learning Centre is celebrating its bar mitzvah, and the community is invited. On the weekend of March 8 and 9, the shul will be holding a shabbat celebration and tribute dinner. During the Shabbat service, there will be classes by Rabbi Yaacov Palatnik, the former rabbi of the Village…
Tales of Toronto’s first Jewish shvitz
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Norman Bornstein, 90, remembers growing up at his grandfather’s Russian Turkish Steam Bath at 36 Centre Avenue in downtown Toronto. Ten years ago (in 1993), he began documenting his memories of his mother’s father, Mendel Riman, but then put his papers away. Last February (2003), after 66 years of marriage, his wife Lillian died. “I…
The legacy of Meyer W. Gasner (1906-1974)
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If the city ever proclaims an official day dedicated to the Jewish community’s many successes, it would be most fitting to call it Meyer W. Gasner Day. That’s because MW, as he was known, gave the community its start. He’s the man who spearheaded almost every aspect of Jewish living in Toronto, be it Jewish…
ADD fails to slow 67-year-old author
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Alvin Abram says he learned early in life that if you have a lemon, you have to learn to make lemonade. The 67-year-old author, speaker, businessman and award-winning volunteer has coped with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) since childhood and has faced a number of crises head on. He married Marilyn Epstein in 1960, and together…
Architects’ records given to Ontario Jewish Archives
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Photographs, blueprints and press clippings documenting the career of the late Toronto architect Harold Kaplan and his firm Kaplan and Sprachman are now in the Ontario Jewish Archives. Records of Kaplan and Sprachman’s work are also at the City of Toronto Archives, the Archives of Ontario and the National Archives of Canada. Kaplan’s two daughters,…
Sherman was society president for 60 years
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William Sherman, who served as president of the Lipsker Young Mens Society for more than 60 years, died recently (2003) at age 91. He was the son of Samuel who came here from Lipsk, Poland in 1905, and in 1930 started Sherman Tailors on College Street. Samuel’s three sons, Teddy, the late Sollie and William,…
