From the Toronto Daily Star, August 11, 1917 Toronto Jews Foster the Higher Education Schools Many, and No One Is Neglected Among the City’s 35,000 Hebrews AND LIBRARIES TOO Hebrew and Yiddish Taught, and a Yiddish Paper is Published Although the Jewish population in Toronto forms but one-sixteenth part of the entire city’s population, there…
Tag: toronto
Edmund Scheuer and the Toronto Jewish Free School
by •
The Toronto Star Weekly of February 12, 1916, carried this report on the Jewish Free School sponsored by Jewish philanthropist Edmund Scheuer. Making Good Canadians Out of Girls of Jewish Birth Splendid Work Being Done at the Jewish Free School Tolerance for Creeds of Others Taught Loyalty to King and Country Strongly Emphasized. The Jewish…
Great new structures pierce Toronto’s skyline (1928)
by •
THE Toronto Telegram reported on Friday June 1, 1928 the construction of these six buildings that would considerably alter Toronto’s skyline. Here is the caption information to this large illustration: * * * Great New Structures Pierce Toronto’s Sky Line Cost Millions to Construct Never in the history of Toronto has there been any year…
1911 profile of Mrs. Jacobs, wife of Holy Blossom rabbi
by •
Note: The following article, which appeared in the Toronto Star Weekly of April 15, 1911, highlights the various activities of Mrs. Jacobs, wife of the Rabbi Solomon Jacobs of the city’s most prominent Jewish congregation, Holy Blossom, then situated at 97 Bond Street. * * * Mrs. Jacobs, Leader Among Jewish Women, and Working Girls’…
Obit: Canadian arts patron Bluma Appel (1919-2007)
by •
Known for her patronage of the arts and her dedication to social causes, Bluma Appel died of cancer July 15 (2007) in a Toronto hospital. She was 86. Born in Montreal, Appel supported many arts and cultural organizations as well as individual artists. An officer of the Order of Canada, she was also the founder of…
Horses on Yonge Street bridge below Davisville
by •
No, it isn’t an advertisement for Marlboro Cigarettes. Those dozen horses, seen in silhouette on an old railroad bridge that spans Yonge Street below Davisville, are the work of 34-year-old site-specific sculptor Robert Sprachman of Toronto. Entitled The Iron Horse, the sculpture consists of 12 life-sized silhouettes of horses arranged on the defunct Beltline Railroad…
Rare 1910 Toronto panorama from Library of Congress
by •
A rare panoramic photograph of Toronto harbour, taken in 1910 from the top of one of the city’s first skyscrapers, has been transferred into video format and posted with some analysis and description onto YouTube. Toronto author and publisher Bill Gladstone, who maintains the website www.billgladstone.ca, came across the rare photograph in the US Library…
Bridging 90 years of Rubinoff-Naftolin history
by •
Sometime between 1905 and 1908, my mother’s grandparents said goodbye to their parents and their village of Zhlobin, Belarus, and brought their children with them to Canada. For decades, although they were divided by a wide gulf of geography and history, family members sent letters in Yiddish back and forth between the Old World and…
Toronto sculptor Sorel Etrog helps commemorate D-Day landing
by •
Sorel Etrog, one of Canada’s most notable sculptors, recently attended a ceremony in Reviers, a town along the Normandy coast of France, at which one of his works was unveiled to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Canadian landing on D-Day. The sculpture, called “Sunbird II,” is made of bronze, weighs about 900 pounds, and…
A mature story collection from Joan Oliver
by •
Producing an acclaimed first collection of short stories was a “snap” for Joan Oliver, a Toronto writer whose book Lines of Truth and Conversation merited inclusion in the Globe and Mail’s list of the 100 best books of 2005. “Snap” is the title of perhaps the collection’s most charming tale, about an eight-year-old girl’s search for…
