Tag: American

Jewish invasion alarms New York (1907)

From The Toronto Star, January 5, 1907 The Greatest Hebrew Community Ever Assembled, Over 800,000 Souls. ARE BUYING UP MANHATTAN Real Estate and Clothing Favorite Fields – Will Starve to Gain End – Poverty to Affluence New York – The Jews of New York City have recently celebrated the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of…

Showboat controversy revisited

Born in 1887 to Jewish parents in Kalamazoo, Mich., American novelist and playwright Edna Ferber was a hardworking, overly modest, frequently self-effacing writer who read the critics too carefully and was too easily wounded by their sloppily-aimed slings and arrows. Convinced, for instance, that no one would want to read her novel So Big, she advised…

Adeline Moses Loeb and her early American Jewish Ancestors

Book Review: An American Experience: Adeline Moses Loeb (1876-1953) and Her Early American Jewish Ancestors. Contributors are John L. Loeb, Jr., Kathy L. Plotkin, Margaret Loeb Kempner and Judith E. Endelman, with an introduction by Eli N. Evans. Hardcover, large format, full colour, 350 pages, plus large genealogical poster in back pocket. Published by the…

Jewish Name Changing in America

A Rosenberg by Any Other Name: A History of Jewish Name Changing in America, by Kirsten Fermaglich, New York University Press, 2018. Although Jewish name-changing was widespread throughout the United States and Canada throughout much of the 20th century, no one has studied this interesting phenomenon at book length until now.   The author, Kirsten…

Editorial: Ganging Up on Israel (Tely, 1969)

From The Toronto Telegram, Tuesday December 23, 1969 ◊ Note: this editorial from 50 years ago is notable for several reasons. First, it reminds us that the perennial Western impulse towards “even-handedness” (and being an “honest broker”) is as faulty as the impulse of a parent to treat two sons identically, though one be well-behaved and…

Helen Keller at Massey Hall, 1914

A WONDER WOMAN AT MASSEY HALL Helen Keller Spoke to Large Audience Who Were Spellbound. HER FAMOUS TEACHER Mrs. Macey Taught Blind, Deaf Mute to Speak and Hear. From the Toronto Star Weekly, January 1914 A magnificent audience almost filled Massey Hall last night, attracted by the appearance of Helen Keller and her almost as…

Herman Wouk (1915 – 2019)

Sailor and Fiddler: Reflections of a 100-Year-old Author, by Herman Wouk (Simon & Schuster) ◊  Note: This review of Herman Wouk’s memoir was first published in 2016. Herman Wouk died on May 17, 2019, age 103. This slim volume, which the author describes as a “non-autobiography,” will be of special interest to people interested in…

Review: Two Days in June, by Andrew Cohen

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…