From Toronto Star Weekly, February 12, 1916 The Jewish Free School at the corner of Cecil and Beverley streets is doing a unique work in Toronto. It was eight years ago that Mr. Edmund Scheuer took over this Sabbath School, under the auspices of the Zionists of Toronto. There were then twenty-one children on the…
From The Globe and Mail, July 28, 1921 ◊ The writer of this sympathetic and thoughtful article seemed to want to demystify the Jewish people for the benefit of the general Christian reader. The writer interviewed some Toronto rabbis and sought to describe some of the beliefs and practices of the Jewish people as reflected in…
From The Toronto Star, September 9, 1909 Boscol Moses, a young farmer from Audbury (sic), Ontario, celebrated his first night in the city by half suffocating himself in the New York Temperance Hotel at the corner of York and Adelaide streets. Moses, who knew nothing about gaslight, made the well known mistake of trying to…
From The Canadian Jewish News, November 19, 1987 If you trace the path of the Toronto Jewish community for the past fifty years you will be taking a snapshot of Goodbaum’s grocery stores as they marched north, eventually under the name of Sunnybrook Foods. “We were at 180 Baldwin Street, 188 Baldwin Street, 374 College…
Note: Rabbi Isaac Halpern came to Toronto from New York about 1888 and at first collected rags. He was one of the founders of the Galician Synagogue, Shomrai Shabboth, which first met in a room on Chestnut Street. Halpern fulfilled many rabbinical duties until the arrival of Rabbi Yoseph Weinreb about 1900. When the Shomrai…
From Beth Sholom Bulletin, Spring 2009 Alex Serota was a founding member of the Shaarei Tefillah Congregation on north Bathurst Street in the late 1950s, but left to join Beth Sholom about 1963 because of the latter’s “magnificent USY movement” that was so important for his two sons. I met recently with Alex and his…
From the Beth Sholom Bulletin, Chanukah 2009 Moishe (Maurice) and Gert Kerbel joined Beth Sholom 40 years ago, a couple of years before their son Jeffrey was to be bar-mitzvahed, and have remained active members to this day. Moishe Kerbel was for many years ritual chairman of the shul. He handed out the “aliyot” and…
From the Beth Sholom Bulletin, Summer 2009 Frank Cadesky, a former president of the congregation from 1969 to 1971, has been a member of Beth Sholom since moving from Owen Sound to Toronto in 1950. The second youngest of 12 children, Cadesky felt right at home here, even though he had previously been involved with…
From the Beth Sholom Bulletin, Fall 2011 A memorable high point in the lives of Louis and Gloria Burke and family, as well as for Beth Sholom Congregation as a whole, was the testimonial dinner with Israeli government minister Menachem Begin that was held on April 29, 1974 to launch the annual Israel Bonds drive.…
From the Beth Sholom Bulletin, Spring 2011 David Beck was a Holocaust survivor who had seen the worst of humanity, so “he wanted to focus on bringing out the good things in life,” said his son Mendy Beck about the long-time former shammus of Beth Sholom, who died October 2010 at the age of 89.…
