From the Globe, October 27, 1902 A Centre of History: Frank Yeigh Conducts a Farewell Pilgrimage through old Parliament Buildings A farewell tour of inspection of the old Parliament buildings, now in process of dissolution, was paid by the Canadian Club on Saturday afternoon under the guidance of Mr. Frank Yeigh. Probably 400 persons, including many…
From the Globe, February 4, 1907 Impressive Dedication Ceremonies Yesterday — Scrolls Removed in State to Their Resting Place in the Ark in Magnificent Meeting Place on University Avenue – Many Gentiles Join Their Hebrew Brethren in Scene of Rejoicing. The opening services at the magnificent new Jewish synagogue on University avenue near Queen street were…
The federal government has plans to sell Postal Station K, the historic art deco building at 2384 Yonge Street, several blocks north of Eglinton, and local residents are up in arms at the thought that a condo developer may take over the property. “This building is of great historic significance, and also stands on the site of…
Adapted from Canadian Jewish News, March 31, 1978 As a delicatessen delivery boy, Samuel Aaron Harris was standing on the bridge spanning the railway tracks at the foot of York Street, watching the flames consume the city of his birth. It was a spectacular sight for the sixteen-year-old boy. The blaze on April 19, 1904…
From the Canadian Jewish News, May 4, 2006 Born in the East End of London, leading British cameraman Joe Rosenthal came to Canada about 1900 at the behest of the Canadian Pacific Railway to make Living Canada, a series of documentary films intended to stimulate immigration. The series was a popular success in Britain, and…
In Imposing Their Will: An Organizational History of Jewish Toronto, 1933-1948 (McGill-Queens), Toronto writer Jack Lipinsky presents an original and illuminating study of Toronto’s Jewish community and convincingly demonstrates that the community underwent a crucial maturation in the 15-year period under discussion. Similarly, in The Defining Decade: Identity, Politics, and The Canadian Jewish Community in…
From the Canadian Jewish Review, November 24, 1967 Although Toronto Jewry is either 118 years old (if one estimates its age from the date of the Pape Avenue burial ground) or 111 years old (estimating from the first permanently organized congregation), its relative newness can be gauged by two facts: until only a few years…
Note: This very early article may be the first significant piece written about the Jewish community of Toronto and any of its synagogues. It appeared only six years after the synagogue was built in 1875 on Richmond and Victoria streets. Like many stories of its kind from that era, it treated the Jews in a…
Anybody who has had occasion to be on the streets of Toronto about midnight or shortly after must have been struck by the almost sepulchral quiet which then reigns on the streets. Except the measured footsteps of the policeman as he treads his beat, a sound often audible at a distance of two or three…
◊ Saturday Night, the staunch Canadian magazine, did us a service by preserving in prose the naïve, native prejudicial stereotype of the day. This article from 1904 paints a disgustingly dark portrait of the ugly foreigner, particularly the Jew, who was then collectively making Toronto a cosmopolitan city for the first time. Anti-semitic in its purest…
