I recently used the genealogy website MyHeritage to drastically improve the colour and clarity of an old Toronto postcard showing the historic Goel Tzedec Synagogue (at lower right in above image). This rare postcard provides an excellent view of the synagogue in situ on University Avenue in the 1920s. The synagogue was built about…
from Canadian Jewish News (2015) When Cantor Bernard Wladowsky was lured from Chicago to Toronto in March 1912 to begin singing in Goel Tzedec Congregation’s monumental new synagogue on University Avenue, he was 36 years old, in beautiful voice, and of striking appearance in his white clerical robes. As the Toronto Daily Star marveled at…
Marriage By Rabbi Held To Be Invalid He Was Not A British Subject at Time He Performed Ceremony Globe, January 15, 1925 (Canadian Press, Montreal) — Because a rabbi who conducted the ceremony was not a British subject, Mr. Justice Bruneau, in the Superior Court today, handed down judgment annulling a marriage conducted ten years…
26 May 2023 Census enumerators across Canada were busy on June 1, 1931, going door to door to gather 40 fields of personal information about 10,376,379 Canadians, including family names and relationships, age, gender, occupation, employment status, racial origin and whether the family had acquired a radio. Having sat in a vault for the past…
New Volumes Published March 30, 2023 Dr. Neil Rosenstein, author of the newly-updated The Unbroken Chain recently announced publication of new volumes in the massive work. Rosenstein is one of the foremost Jewish genealogists in America today, with an internationally acclaimed expertise in the genealogy of rabbinic dynastic families. The Unbroken Chain deals uniquely with…
From Inside Toronto (2017) My niece Katie gave birth to her first child recently (a boy) and she suddenly realized how little she knew about her ancestors, especially on her father’s side. Since I’m the family genealogist and a professional one to boot, I gladly volunteered to research her antecedants. Little did I realize that…
From Inside Toronto, 2016 As if attaining genealogical records wasn’t already hard enough, genealogists now have to face a steep new barrier when it comes to getting Ontario birth records. Quietly, on the sly and when no one was looking, the Ontario Registrar General changed its longstanding rule about how long to wait before birth…
From Avotaynu, 2020 Book Review: A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from Italy, France and “Portuguese” Communities, by Alexander Beider. Like a Napoleon of names, Alexander Beider has been sweeping methodically across the Jewish diaspora seeking to apply a rigid scientific methodology to the naturally-occurring phenomenon of Jewish surnames. Beider has devoted more than three decades…
Shanghai’s Baghdadi Jews: A Collection of Biographical Reflections, by Maisie J. Meyer, author and editor. Large format, 480 pages, softcover. Blacksmith Books, Hong Kong, 2015. Shanghai’s community of Ashkenazic Jews, who arrived from Poland and elsewhere in Europe in the early 20th century and in advance of the Holocaust, is already fairly well-known. What is…
The Neu-Raussnitz Tax Book by Dr. Heinrich Flesch, translated, adapted and with an introduction by Patrick Gordis & Henry Wellisch Some 90 years ago, a Moravian rabbi and historian, Dr. Heinrich Flesch (1875-1942), annotated a list of Jews from Neu-Raussnitz, Moravia, who paid taxes in 1808, then used the annotated list as a basis for a…
