Canada’s art world is lamenting the end of an era with the demise of Ken Saltmarche, founding director of the Art Gallery of Windsor, who died in Toronto on July 3, 2003, at the age of 82. An accomplished artist, Saltmarche ultimately made his greatest mark as an arts administrator and is being remembered as…
Tag: canada
Yarmouth, picturesque Maritime town, is losing its Jews
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A melancholic mist o’erhangs the main street of Yarmouth, an isolated village of about 7,000 people on Nova Scotia’s extreme southwestern shore. Sixty miles from the coast of Maine, Yarmouth has not changed much since its glory days as a thriving regional seaport in the late 19th century, when it served as a major embarkation point…
Tapper’s Biographical Dictionary of Canadian Jews
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Between 1897 and 1914 — the period between the rise of Zionism and the start of the Great War — a quality English-language fortnightly newspaper captured the flavour of Jewish life in Canada. Published in Montreal, The Canadian Jewish Times functioned as a community bulletin board for the several thousand Jews then resident in Canada…
Edmund Scheuer and the Toronto Jewish Free School
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The Toronto Star Weekly of February 12, 1916, carried this report on the Jewish Free School sponsored by Jewish philanthropist Edmund Scheuer. Making Good Canadians Out of Girls of Jewish Birth Splendid Work Being Done at the Jewish Free School Tolerance for Creeds of Others Taught Loyalty to King and Country Strongly Emphasized. The Jewish…
Toronto’s Tom Sandler, photographer to the Royals
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Although Tom Sandler’s family lived in England in the late 1800s, none of his relatives ever came into contact with royalty until he became the British royal family’s photographer of choice during their frequent visits to Canada. The Toronto camera pro’s relationship with the royals blossomed from his volunteer involvement, beginning more than a decade…
Obit: Ben Weider, built bodybuilding empire (1923-2008)
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Ben Weider, who with his brother Joe founded a billion-dollar bodybuilding empire and helped launch Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career in the United States, died October 17 (2008) of heart failure in his native city of Montreal at the age of 85. Weider was also a collector of rare Napoleonic artifacts, and donated some sixty valuable pieces…
Toronto sculptor Sorel Etrog helps commemorate D-Day landing
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Sorel Etrog, one of Canada’s most notable sculptors, recently attended a ceremony in Reviers, a town along the Normandy coast of France, at which one of his works was unveiled to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Canadian landing on D-Day. The sculpture, called “Sunbird II,” is made of bronze, weighs about 900 pounds, and…
Exploring beautiful Cape Breton
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One hour’s flight north of Halifax, at the edge of the Atlantic, durable mountains meet the sea on beautiful Cape Breton, with some of the most spectacular scenery in eastern North America. Physically reminiscent of the Scottish highlands, the island boasts villages like Iona where Gaelic is still spoken and Acadian communities like Cheticamp where…
Awesome Bon Echo Provincial Park
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What natural feature gives Bon Echo provincial park, in northeastern Ontario, a special reputation among campers? We arrived here late one June afternoon without knowing the answer — but we soon found out. After pitching our tent, we set off on a hike through the tangled forest, threading through stands of birches and pines along…
A compendium of Canadian Jews in the arts
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Note: this compendium of Canadian Jews in the arts appeared in a special supplement of the Canadian Jewish News in 2005. * * * Jewish poets were composing lines and Jewish painters composing scenes long before Canada was founded; and, as evidenced in the Canadian Jewish New’s weekly Eye on Arts column, there is no…
