◊ 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…
Tag: toronto
Dark, dangerous police station in St. Andrew’s Market, 1907
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The Force Quartered in St. Andrew’s Market Have Poor Quarters, and the Cells are Dark, Dangerous, and Unsanitary From the Toronto Star, October 5, 1907 One cannot be a policeman in a day. It is only after a most thorough coaching and training that a man can don the blue uniform with the silver buttons…
On Toronto’s First Synagogue, by Dr. David Eisen
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View from north-east corner Adelaide & Victoria, Toronto, 1856 From the Jewish Standard, April 15, 1966 That Toronto’s first synagogue was located over a drug store at the corner of Richmond and Yonge Streets is fairly well known in the Jewish community. But what this structure looked like and the general appearance of the neighbourhood…
Toronto by night: a policeman’s rounds, 1884
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From the Toronto World, May 1884 Toilers of the Night – No. 3 (Final part of a series) Walking Against Time by the Corporation Gaslight — How the Sleeping Citizens are Guarded at Night If night policemen are not exactly “toilers,” insofar as they have little manual labour to perform, they have at least “legwork”…
Rabbi Schild’s memoir of an ‘uncertain passage’
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From Books in Canada, 2002 One evening some months ago, a crowd of about 600 people gathered in Toronto’s Adath Israel Synagogue for the launch of Rabbi Erwin Schild’s latest book, The Very Narrow Bridge: A Memoir of an Uncertain Passage. The hall in the synagogue was packed (standing room only) as the rabbi delivered…
Behind the Scenes in Toronto Police Court (1910)
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Thousands of cases never see cruel light of publicity All the Officials Seek to Settle People’s Trouble Out of Court If Possible — Sifting Out False from True Evidence a Big Task for the Crown Attorney — Jacob Cohen, J.P. Has Troubles of His Own Settling Those of His Countrymen From the Toronto Star Weekly,…
Furor over United Church pastor-editor (1969)
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Can’t See the Forrest for the Trees Editor’s note: In July 2012 the United Church of Canada is considering a boycott of Israeli goods, a proposal that nine Canadian senators have condemned. This is only further evidence that, when it comes to relations with Israel and the Jews, the Church has had a long and…
Toronto by night: a bakery and a hospital (1884)
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Toilers of the Night, Part II The People Who Don’t Go to Bed Until Sunrise From The Toronto World, May 9, 1884 Interior, Toronto General Hospital, 1913. CTA F1231-it207b The majority of men working in city bake-houses are not, strictly speaking, employed all night. About 3 a.m., or a little later, as the printers begin…
Toronto Jewish Film Festival turns 20
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From The Canadian Jewish News, April 2012 The 20th annual Toronto Jewish Film Festival opens Thursday May 3, 2012 at the Cineplex Odeon Varsity with the English-Canadian premiere of A Bottle in the Gaza Sea, a France-Canada co-production about a teenaged Israeli girl who receives an email response from a young Palestinian who calls himself…
The Doctor’s Office: A Secretary’s Memoir
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From The Canadian Jewish News, January 14, 1999 Ruth Mather, who for 44 years was secretary to Dr. Sidney Carlen, Toronto’s first Jewish cardiologist, has written a tribute to his pioneering and sensitive medical practice. It is an unvarnished and historically accurate account of the Jewish doctors who started their practices in Toronto in the…
