Toronto publisher Now and Then Books’s latest title — Only Yesterday: Collected Pieces on the Jews of Toronto, by Benjamin Kayfetz and Stephen A. Speisman — is a prolifically illustrated book featuring 18 evocative articles by two notable historians of Toronto’s Jewish community. Culled from a variety of sources, the pieces in Only Yesterday focus…
Tag: toronto
A ‘gipsy’ encampment near Davisville (1911)
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Note: The following article, which appeared in the Toronto Star Weekly of January 28, 1911, describes a so-called “gipsy” encampment of a century ago in the woods to the east of the Toronto neighbourhood of Davisville and Eglinton. The people then commonly described as “gypsies” are today referred to as “Roma.” * * * A…
Police Raid Matzah Factory (1909)
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From the Toronto Star, November 4, 1909 ◊ This article reflects two problems sometimes faced by members of the city’s Jewish community in regard to the police. The first is selective enforcement of the law, seemingly targeting the Jews (and certainly other minorities probably even more). The second is the specific Sunday blue laws that meant…
Toronto’s junk trade worth $10 million a year (1913)
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From the Toronto Star weekly October 4, 1913 Some men who began with the bag over their shoulders now worth around $1 million — Old iron sold to the foundaries to be recast — Bones made into glue, fertilizers, and used in refining sugar – Paper and rags go to the Mills — Nothing is…
From Post Office Manager to Prison — A Tale of the Ward
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◊ The following newspaper stories tell of young Joseph Gurofsky’s rise from assessment clerk to bank manager in Toronto’s “Ward” neighbourhood where mostly “foreigners” reside — and how, one fall day, he was drawn into a violent street fight with some Italian ruffians that led to his trial and short imprisonment. Somewhat grandiosely and inaccurately, the…
The shantytowns on Toronto’s outskirts (1911)
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From the Toronto Star Weekly, March 25, 1911 EVOLUTION OF TORONTO’S MANY SHACKTOWNS — PIONEERS HAVE MADE GOOD WITH A VENGEANCE Between life in The Ward or in the locality of Eastern avenue and life in the poorest district in the outskirts there is an immense difference. In the Eastern slum people are living in…
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…
David Crombie reflects on a century of change in Toronto
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Exclusive Report, February 3, 2013 Former Toronto Mayor David Crombie easily charmed a full-house audience at a January 30th meeting of the North Toronto Historical Society in Northern District Library. Although Crombie’s advertised topic was “North Toronto 1912, Then and Now,” references to North Toronto were few and far between. But it didn’t seem to…
Toronto shul exhibits photos of Polish shtetl
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From the Canadian Jewish News, October 3, 2012 TORONTO — A series of old historic photographs from the Polish shtetl of Staszow has been quietly wowing visitors since being installed in the Stashover-Slipia Synagogue on Sultana Avenue in Toronto. The photographs are to remain on permanent display in the shul’s lobby. “Everyone notices them when they…
Toronto Pioneers — the Robinsons and Franklins
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From the Canadian Jewish News, May 3, 1963 by Mordecai Hirshenson Who was the Mrs. Elisa Robinson who bequeathed more than a half-a-million dollars to nine Jewish institutions in her will which was probated recently? Not many Jewish Torontonians of this generation can recall her and her husband, nor their parents. But in the smaller…
