Adapted from Canadian Jewish News, March 31, 1978 As a delicatessen delivery boy, Samuel Aaron Harris was standing on the bridge spanning the railway tracks at the foot of York Street, watching the flames consume the city of his birth. It was a spectacular sight for the sixteen-year-old boy. The blaze on April 19, 1904…
From the Canadian Jewish News, August 22, 1985 The 50th wedding anniversary of Belle and Harry Greenwald of Linus Road, Willowdale, was celebrated at a luncheon in their honour hosted by their daughter and son-in-law, Carolyn and Joe Feldman, at the Adath Shalom Synagogue. Harry Greenwald was born in Stacha, Poland in 1911. His parents…
Above: Harry & Esther Harris & Children, Toronto ca 1920. Back row from left: Harold, Meyer, Rachel, D. Lou, Millie, Joe, Ann. Middle: Kay, Jean, Fred. Front: Gertie, Harry & Esther, Leola. D. Lou Harris (top centre in striped tie) became an influential Jewish communal figure. From Canadian Jewish News, Dec. 31, 1971 Fanny Green…
A Narrow Policy From an undated newspaper clipping, Toronto, about 1913 When the YMCA authorities determined to segregate their 400 Hebrew members they made a false step. It is true that the action is consistent with the policy of excluding Unitarians from the institution, but the general public who have been subscribing freely to the…
Note: This very early article may be the first significant piece written about the Jewish community of Toronto and any of its synagogues. It appeared only six years after the synagogue was built in 1875 on Richmond and Victoria streets. Like many stories of its kind from that era, it treated the Jews in a…
The Federation of Jewish Philanthropies published a partial list of hundreds of donors in the Toronto Star in December 1925. The list, which is reproduced below in full, may be used as a primary genealogical source for those seeking the presence of a person on family in the city at that time. Click to enlarge.…
Anybody who has had occasion to be on the streets of Toronto about midnight or shortly after must have been struck by the almost sepulchral quiet which then reigns on the streets. Except the measured footsteps of the policeman as he treads his beat, a sound often audible at a distance of two or three…
◊ Saturday Night, the staunch Canadian magazine, did us a service by preserving in prose the naïve, native prejudicial stereotype of the day. This article from 1904 paints a disgustingly dark portrait of the ugly foreigner, particularly the Jew, who was then collectively making Toronto a cosmopolitan city for the first time. Anti-semitic in its purest…
◊ In the fall of 1910, the Toronto newspapers described certain bureaucratic difficulties that had been discovered in the naturalization applications of hundreds of would-be citizens because an assistant of Justice of the Peace Jacob Cohen had been signing the forms for Cohen instead of Cohen signing his own name himself. Cohen apparently had no knowledge…
The Force Quartered in St. Andrew’s Market Have Poor Quarters, and the Cells are Dark, Dangerous, and Unsanitary From the Toronto Star, October 5, 1907 One cannot be a policeman in a day. It is only after a most thorough coaching and training that a man can don the blue uniform with the silver buttons…
