Toronto: Now and Then Books, 2010; softcover, 170 pp. Price: $22. Order from <www.now andthenbookstoronto.com>.
The Jew in Canada, ed. Arthur D. Hart. Originally published in 1926; abridged facsimile edition Now and Then Books, cost: 2010. softcover, large format, 466 pp. Price: $40. Order from <www.nowandthenbookstoronto.com>.
It is not often that a book reviewer has an opportunity to review two books of which he is also the publisher, so when AVOTAYNU invited me to do so in these pages, I jumped at the opportunity. One of the books (Shapiro) was written 60 years ago but has never been published before. The other (Hart) was first published in 1926 and has been out of print and almost impossible to find ever since. Both, in my opinion, are precious resources that uniquely illuminate the historical and genealogical roots of the Jewish community of, respectively, Toronto and all of Canada.
The Rise of the Toronto Jewish Community paints a colorful and authentic portrait of what is now Canada’s largest Jewish community from its earliest days to about 1950, highlighting its strong immigrant and Yiddish flavor. The manuscript was brought to my attention last year while I was researching a book in a Toronto synagogue archives. Its pages offered a unique view of the Yiddish-speaking world once inhabited by my grandparents and their many cousins, all of whom settled in Toronto between 1905 and 1925. Astonishingly, the manuscript was misattributed to a wrong author—it became clear as I read the work that the correct author was Shmuel Mayer Shapiro, editor-publisher of the Daily Hebrew Journal, the city’s main Yiddish newspaper for half a century. Shapiro’s only surviving daughter corroborated my deduction and gave me permission to publish the manuscript under Shapiro’s own chosen title.
The Rise of the Toronto Jewish Community offers vivid thumbnail sketches of many early synagogues, anshei congregations,* landsmanschaft organizations,* and immigrant aid societies, along with a gallery of key personalities from the community’s formative period. Shapiro brings Toronto’s vanished “Ward” neighborhood back to life with vivid descriptions of the soup kitchens, soda parlors, steamship agents, coffee houses, and Christian missions that once graced its predominantly Jewish streets. (The “Ward” was Toronto’s answer to New York’s Lower East Side, except, of course, on a considerably smaller scale.)
The book offers fascinating historical sketches on the evolution of the local Yiddish press, Jewish labor unions, and the Spadina Avenue garment industry. As an editor with some expertise in Toronto’s early Jewish community, I took delight in illustrating the text with 90 photographs and illustrations from the early days. The text is also enhanced with a glossary of Yiddish and Hebrew terms, an afterword by the late Ben Kayfetz, and a comprehensive name and subject index.
* * * * * *
Compiled and edited in 1926, The Jew in Canada offers profiles and photographs of hundreds of prominent personalities and community leaders in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary, Vancouver, and a host of
other Canadian cities. Many entries give the year and place of birth of an individual, as well as his or her immigration history and the names of family members. Histories and illustrations are also given of synagogues, Hebrew schools, Talmud Torahs, business enterprises, women’s activities, charitable and welfare work, and other community endeavors.
Several chapters (by historian B. G. Sack) dealing primarily with the period before 1880 were not included in this abridged facsimile edition as they are readily available elsewhere; a few other peripheral essays also were omitted. However, all of the biographical and genealogical material and related photographs of the original were included.
The Jew in Canada is an exemplary resource for the study of Canadian Jewry, just as The Rise of the Toronto Jewish Community is a valuable and newly available resource for those with an interest in Toronto. Both books were published by my publishing company, Now and Then Books, and may be ordered from the website <www. nowand thenbookstoronto.com>.
* These are groups formed by people from the same town or region in the Old Country.
– Review by Bill Gladstone
