One of the more durable myths of Jewish genealogy is the notion that names were commonly changed at Ellis Island or — the Canadianized version — at Pier 22 in Halifax. Despite what Great Aunt Minnie once told you, surnames rarely underwent transformation at Ellis Island or Pier 22. Immigration officers at both sites usually…
Tag: toronto
Library & Archives Canada preserves our history
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As Canadians, much of the documents behind our history is preserved at the National Archives of Canada (now Library and Archives Canada). As Jewish Canadians, we may also turn to this indispensable Ottawa-based institution to gain access to numerous collections of special relevance to our community. WWI Papers: Did any of your ancestors or relatives…
Kitty Wintrob’s wartime memoir, I’m Not Going Back
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When Kitty Wintrob enrolled in a creative writing workshop with her daughter some 25 years ago, she didn’t imagine she would end up writing a full-length memoir. After receiving enthusiastic praise in the workshop for her writing, Wintrob enrolled in a second workshop, then a third. She ultimately kept taking one workshop after another for…
Old news is new again
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At some point in their lives, nearly everyone in our modern world gets into the newspaper, even if only for a birth, marriage or death announcement. That’s why the newly-emerging searchable electronic archives of publications like the New York Times, the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail constitute a giant leap forward for genealogists,…
Obit: Mandel Sprachman (1925-2002)
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Mandel Sprachman, the Toronto architect who restored the city’s legendary Elgin-Winter Garden vaudeville house to its original splendour, has died at the age of 77. Like his father before him, Sprachman specialized in old movie palaces and theatres; he renovated and restored many such edifices in Toronto, Montreal and other Canadian cities. He was also…
Toronto: A Literary Guide
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A year after Isaac Bashevis Singer came to the United States, he was required to renew his visa from outside the United States. Rather than return to Europe, he snuck into Canada and came to Toronto. In case you missed reading details of Singer’s 1936 visit here in his reminiscence Lost in America, the episode…
Wex: kvetching all the way to the bank
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Bouquets, encomiums, kudos and raves have deservedly been heaped upon Toronto’s own Michael Wex for this splendid and erudite treatise Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods (HarperCollins softcover) which has catapulted him from near-obscurity onto the New York Times bestseller list. Some of us know Wex for his storytelling abilities…
Sherman’s ‘Void and Voice’
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Void & Voice: Essays on Literary and Historical Currents by Kenneth Sherman (Mosaic Press, 1998) opens with two short gem-like reminiscences, The Tailor Shop and Silver Braids, recalling the author’s grandfather and grandmother, respectively. Early in the century, Sherman’s grandfather opened Sherman Custom Tailors at College and Bathurst streets in Toronto, an establishment that brims…
Marmur ‘On Being A Jew’
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The Holy Blossom Temple has just published On Being A Jew: A Reform Perspective, a new book of writings (1994) by Rabbi Dow Marmur to mark his tenth anniversary as spiritual leader of the Temple, home of the largest Reform congregation in Canada. “This book was the alternative to a dinner,” said Rabbi Marmur at…
Obit: comedian Frank Shuster (1916-2002)
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Frank Shuster, the straight man in the legendary comedy team of Wayne and Shuster, has died in Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital of pneumonia at the age of 85. He and his partner Johnny Wayne, who died in 1990, performed as a comic duo for 56 continuous years since first teaming up together for some comic…
