Condensed from The Canadian Jewish News, July 28, 1983 Sam Sterling was named Man of the Year of the Fashion Industry by the Fashion Division of State of Israel Bonds despite the fact that Sterling has never visited Israel, Frank Rasky wrote. Sterling — the courtly 66-year-old “Button King” of Toronto’s garment trade — was…
Tag: profile
Portrait of Walter Winchell (1936)
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Archivist of Gothomania By Hye Bossin From the Canadian Jewish Standard, September 1936 New York’s prize piece of human curiosa is Walter Winchell. He climbed over Shaw, Stalin, Hitler, Roosevelt, etc., to top the New York Post’s poll. Suckers stare at him in night clubs instead of the floor show. You are likely to hear…
Profile: Jerry & Naomi Goldenberg
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From the Beth Sholom Bulletin, Toronto, Spring 2013 It is a busy day for Gerald and Naomi Goldenberg as they help plan some last-minute details for the upcoming wedding of one of their grandchildren. But even so, they kindly take a few minutes to sit down with me in the den of their Briar Hill…
Profile: Elias Rogers, Canada’s “King Coal” (1913)
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Fame and Fortune Came to Canada’s Biggest “King Coal” When He Fought American Trust Elias Rogers Began Life as Farm Lad in York County — Earned First Wages in a Lumber Yard — A Quaker by Faith — Once Ran for Mayor in Toronto From the Toronto Star Weekly, September 20, 1913 Passing along King…
Profile: Mickey and Frimette Snow (2011)
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From the Beth Sholom Bulletin, April 2011 Mickey and Frimette Snow speak exuberantly about their long attachment to Beth Sholom, the Toronto synagogue that they joined in 1951, two years after they were married. Mickey, whose surname was shortened from Sosnowski, was born in Toronto in 1927 in a house on Euclid Avenue owned by…
Obit: Dr. Daniel Hill (1923-2003)
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From the Globe and Mail, 2003 As a great-grandson of American slaves, Dr. Daniel Hill carried the lessons of universal equality and civil rights in his blood. Founding director of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and a former Ontario ombudsman, Dr. Hill is being remembered as a pioneer of the human rights movement in Canada…
Toronto’s chief librarian a remarkable fellow (1913)
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From the Toronto Star Weekly, July 5, 1913 Emphatically the right man in the right place is Dr. George H. Locke as Toronto’s chief librarian. Possibly he does not look quite look the part, for there is a notable absence of “mustiness” about him. And “mustiness,” to many people’s minds, should be the lot of…
Obit: Ross Dowson, Trotskyite & mayoral candidate (d. 2002)
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From the Globe and Mail, February 2002 As a Trotskyite and leader of the Revolutionary Workers Party, Ross Dowson might have been expected to tarry on the fringes of Canadian political life forever, so it came as a considerable shock to many Torontonians when he drew twenty per cent of the vote in a mayor’s…
Batya Unterschatz, Israel’s One-Woman Search Bureau (2003)
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From Canadian Jewish News, 2003 He was a British soldier and she was a Jewish nurse in British-mandate Palestine: they met in Egypt about 1940. She was killed in an accident and he vowed to let her family know. But how to find them? He — the British soldier — knew that she had been…
Review: The Gershwins & Me, by Michael Feinstein
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For those who love the classic tunes of the so-called American “songbook” and particularly the timeless melodies and lyrics of George and Ira Gershwin, Michael Feinstein’s new book, The Gershwins and Me: A Personal History in Twelve Songs is much more than heartfelt homage by an outsider or Johnny-come-lately to a remarkable musical era that is…
