When Judah Joseph, an English-born Jew, settled in Muddy York in 1838 and set up shop as an optician and watchmaker, little did he dream he was the forerunner of a vigorous community of 75,000, the third largest Jewish community in the British Commonwealth. It is now (in 1956) celebrating its 100th anniversary as an…
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…
Calling all Bellevillians and former Bellevillians to the 50th reunion of the “new” Sons of Jacob Congregation. The reunion takes place in the city of Belleville on the June 3 (2005) weekend, and includes a full program to celebrate the building’s 50th anniversary. In 1955, 65 Jewish families looked at their old-fashioned synagogue, which was…
James Harris, a 19th-century dairy farmer, brought renown to the southwestern Ontario town of Ingersoll by exhibiting a mammoth piece of locally-produced cheese at world’s fairs in the United States and England. Today, the elegant house that Harris built in 1867 still brings a modest renown to Ingersoll, in its modern incarnation at the heart…
THE following is the beginning of The House of the Living, a “long” short story by Bill Gladstone. It is a romance-mystery of Jewish genealogy. Genealogist David Lazarus assists a married lady named Sarah Blum to discover what happened to an uncle who disappeared from her family, and changes his life in the process. Originally…
Twice a day for nine days each August, 100 propane-fueled hot air balloons rise from 10 sites around the town of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, and drift lazily over the outlying vineyards, apple orchards and fields of maize. At six in the morning and again at six in the evening, weather permitting, a single balloon-meister gives the…
About the time Alberta-born Doug Webber moved to Churchill, Man., with his family in the early Sixties, the remote Hudson Bay community had a population of about 7,500 residents, many of them attached to the NASA space port and the Canadian and American military bases there that have since closed down. “Those were the days…
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…
For the invitation to her “100 Years Young” birthday party, Naomi Bogomolny chose an anonymous poem titled Life Owes Me Nothing. On June 3 (2005) Bogomolny will celebrate her 100th birthday surrounded by more than 100 members of her family and friends. Bogomolny was interviewed at her seniors residence, along with her daughter Edith Monson,…
For more than a century, Abraham (Abe) Lieff, who is known as the father of modern Canadian family law, has witnessed history unfolding in Canada and Israel. Lieff is a walking history book. His memory reaches back into the pioneer days of the development of the organized Jewish community in Canada, particularly the Jewish community…
