Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes

Margolis, Rebecca

123Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes, vol. 21, 2013 [2014]
Rebecca Margolis
Oyfn Veg Session Two Discussion
124 Rebecca Margolis / Oyfn Veg Session Two Discussion
It is a great privilege to serve as respondent to these papers by Ira Robinson and 
Pierre Anctil at an event honouring Gerald Tulchinsky: each one of these senior 
scholars have served as mentors to me from my own beginnings as a young scholar in 
the field of Jewish Canadian Studies, and I owe them all a great debt of gratitude. As 
is evidenced in these two papers by Robinson and Anctil, the field of Canadian Jewish 
History has reached a place where it can take stock of where it stands. The discipline 
has evolved from an amateur pursuit to one comprised of professional historians 
who have brought it to scholarly conferences and into the university classroom. This 
is a most fitting tribute to Gerald Tulchinsky, one of the pioneering professional 
historians of Canadian Jewish life, who has not only built a prestigious career as an 
innovative, meticulous and generally excellent scholar but as a warm-hearted and 
generous individual who has inspired and encouraged countless scholars.
These two papers build on Tulchinsky’s legacy as a historian of Jewish Canadian life. 
Robinson examines one of the most complex and difficult areas of Canadian Jewish 
historiography in his study of anti-Jewish sentiment in French Canada. As he states, 
‘The issue concerning the historical relationship between Jews and French Canadi-
ans is not merely fundamentally important for any responsible presentation of the 
historical development of Jews in Canada, it is also arguably the most controversial.” 
Robinson does not shy away from potential controversy as he points to new areas of 
anti-Jewish sentiment in the forms of anti-Haredi and anti-Israel activity. Like so 
many historians of Jewish Canada before him, from B.G. Sack to Gerald Tulchin-
sky, Robinson draws on a wide array of sources in multiple languages and offers a 
nuanced narrative of Jewish Canadian history. Anctil points to the significance of 
Yiddish voices in the Jewish experience in Canada, a feature of that narrative that 
Tulchinsky has always highlighted by seamlessly incorporating a variety of sources 
into his writing, both in sidebars and in the main text, including Yiddish poetry.
Reflections on Antisemitism in French Canada
Robinsons’s study of antisemitism, drawn from his forthcoming book on the subject, 
points to the persistent, cyclical nature of anti-Jewish sentiment in French Canada. 
His closing sentiment, a quote from from André Laurendeau—“Six million victims 
have not rooted out anti-Semitism. There are days when the progress of the human 
race seems dismally slow”—precludes the possibility of a linear interpretation that 
ends with an inevitable eradication of antisemitism. Rather, Robinsons highlights 
the different guises that anti-Jewish sentiment has taken in French Canada. In the 
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Jews were well integrated into British Canada 
and resented in French Canada as part of that group. While, as Robinson points out, 
they faced prejudice in political life, most famously in the case of Aaron Hart, the 
issues surrounding even this case were complex and enmeshed in wider struggles 
between a French Catholic majority and a British elite that dominated the economic 
and political realms.1 Simply put, “Jews and Judaism failed to become an overt po-
125Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes, vol. 21, 2013 [2014]
litical issue in an ongoing way in early and mid-nineteenth century Canada.” By 
the turn of the twentieth century, mass Jewish immigration and increased Jewish 
visibility changed the existing dynamic and brought new tensions. Rising resent-
ments and anti-Jewish discourse expressed itself in the public sphere. The next and 
most well documented period, which coincides with the rise of Nazism, marked a 
period of increased hostility as well as powerlessness in the Jewish community. This 
era of anti-Jewish boycotts and small-scale violence marked the highpoint of overt 
anti-Jewish hostility. The post-War period marked a sea change and new efforts at 
rapprochement between Jews and French Canadians. However, it did not mark the 
end of antisemitism. Rather, anti-Jewish sentiment adopted new guises in the wake 
of Quebec nationalism came to fill the power vacuum left after the decline of the 
Catholic Church. The threat of Quebec sovereignty not only caused a mass exodus of 
Jews from the province in the 1970s, but it has also resulted in lasting uncertainties 
about the place of Jews within the province as new forms of anti-Jewish rhetoric 
emerged. Recent discussions of “religious accommodation” have formed a flashpoint 
for these tensions. 
This element of his study points to the complexities of the subject and its ev-
er-changing guise: as Robinsons puts it, “Plus ça change?” In the secularized state 
of the post-Quiet Revolution, Church leaders no longer preach anti-Jewish rhetoric 
from their pulpits. Jews are free to hold any political office and reside in any neigh-
bourhood in the country. Canada no longer has immigration policies in place that 
single out Jews as undesirable. Canadian Jews are, on the whole, extremely well-in-
tegrated into Canadian society and no longer face institutionalized exclusion from 
the conduits of upward mobility—universities, access to many professional careers—
as did the mass Eastern European immigration of a century ago. As a group, Jews in 
Canada have been highly successful in maintaining their identities while also enter-
ing the mainstream. 
Although I wish it were not so, I agree with Robinson that antisemitism in French 
Canada—and Canada as a whole—is far from dead. While many might have hoped 
that the atrocities of the Holocaust would offer a lesson in the potential dangers 
of anti-Jewish sentiment, its expressions have simply changed course. Much in the 
same way that modernity replaced longstanding beliefs that Jews were devils and 
poisoned wells with new notions about Jews as a racial group being harbingers of 
Capitalism (as well as Communism) who could not be loyal to the state, Robinson 
points to two new areas of anti-Jewish sentiment that have recently reared their 
heads. Like previous forms of antisemitism, these new forms are particularly nefari-
ous because they are deemed socially acceptable in so many circles. The first targets 
the Haredi communities, who have been widely criticized in recent decades for their 
extreme rejection of modernity and secular life. As Robinson points out, this senti-
ment has been most vociferous in the Province of Quebec, home to a majority of the 
country’s Haredi Jews and also a hotbed of political secularism. The second targets 
126 Rebecca Margolis / Oyfn Veg Session Two Discussion
the modern State of Israel, where attacks on the country ranging from anti-Israel 
rhetoric to boycotts have become commonplace. Like other scholars in recent years,2 
Robinson points to a shift in the parameters of antisemitism since the existence of 
the State of Israel to include expressions of anti-Israel sentiment. 
Robinson’s article indicates that antisemitism persists in Canada and will likely con-
tinue to evolve with time. Will it ever be gone? Probably not in our lifetimes.
Yiddish Scholarship in Canada
Anctil offers a dual argument on the state of Yiddish in Canada: he laments lack of 
knowledge among potential scholars to access Yiddish sources that are indispensable 
to understanding the Jewish experiencing in Canada while also celebrating the ex-
pansion of interest in Yiddish, notably in French Canada. 
The first point is indisputable. Access to Yiddish sources opens up a wealth of docu-
mentation that is critical to gaining a nuanced understanding of Jewish life in Can-
ada during and after the mass Eastern European immigration. And yet there are 
relatively few scholars who have accessed in depth this wealth of source material for 
research on Jewish life in Canada in its own right during the expansion of the field 
of Jewish Canadian history in the last three decades. The accounts of Jewish history 
authored by scholars with knowledge of Yiddish include the role of that language 
and culture as part of the narrative: in addition to Gerald Tulchinsky, the list in-
cludes: Irving Abella, Harold Troper, Ira Robinson, Richard Menkis, and Morton 
Weinfeld. For these scholars, accessing the Yiddish sources—newspapers and other 
primary documents, literary and religious texts—has formed a natural part of the 
research process in unearthing the history and contemporary life of Canadian Jew-
ry. Rather than focus on the Yiddish experience per se, they have integrated it into 
their wider narratives, and there is much room for closer readings of immigrant 
adaptation in the Canadian context. And yet little has been written that examines the 
Yiddish experience in depth in its own right. Anctil suggests that this is due, at least 
in part, to a reticence during of a successfully integrated Canadian Jewish population 
to acknowledge a past where new Jewish immigrants sought to maintain a distinct 
language and culture in Yiddish: “As Canadian Jewish history races to reach a more 
palatable present, it tends to turn away from the study of earlier periods when Jews 
did not exemplify the Canadian norm – if such a concept ever existed…. By and 
large, when written in English, Canadian Jewish history has tended to gloss over the 
fact that there existed for at least half a century a period when Yiddish was domi-
nant and when cultural production in that language was at its apex.” As an author 
of numerous studies of Yiddish life in Canada myself, I am not convinced that the 
omission of the Yiddish component from the dominant narrative is not due to far 
more practical reasons, namely easy access to the language. The professionalization 
of Jewish Canadian History in last three few decades has coincided with a rapidly 
127Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes, vol. 21, 2013 [2014]
declining knowledge of Yiddish. Certainly, one can fault historians of Jewish Canada 
for not engaging in rigorous study of Yiddish in order to be able to delve into the 
treasure-trove of documents available in that language. However, this does not mean 
that these historians did not fully appreciate the Yiddish period of Jewish Canadian 
history; it simply was not their focus in their historical studies. For example, None 
is Too Many largely draws on Canada Canadian government archival materials—not 
written in Yiddish—to offer a narrative of the barring of European Jews from Can-
ada between 1933-1948. 
There is without doubt much to contribute to our understanding of the Yiddish 
experience in Canada, but the future of that narrative does not seem very sunny. To-
day there are few individuals, in particular under the age of sixty, who have reading 
knowledge of Yiddish strong enough to read texts of any kind. Even within Haredi 
circles, where Yiddish is a spoken language, members are not trained to read literary 
and scholarly texts in the language. Rather, loshn-koydesh (Hebrew-Aramaic) is the 
accepted mark of literacy while reading secular texts in Yiddish such as poetry would 
be anathema to their traditionally religiously observant world. Further, Yiddish is 
no longer being taught in secular Jewish elementary and high schools at a level that 
creates readers of the language, and, with just a tiny number of households outside 
of the Haredi communities speaking the language, few individuals are exposed to 
the language in other ways. Universities rarely offer classes beyond the beginner 
level and there is no Yiddish country to visit to have an immersion experience. Even 
intensive Yiddish programs, which excel in their effectiveness at teaching the lan-
guage, rarely offer continuity that allows students to reach true fluency.
I am less convinced of Anctil’s second point. Anctil posits the following rationale 
for the interest of Quebecers in Yiddish: “Here was another minority striving to 
create for itself an institutional structure propitious to the preservation of a unique 
language and culture.” Anctil posits the “Main” as a locus of diversity and “meeting 
of cultures” between French Quebecers and Jews: in Jewish stores, garment facto-
ries or outdoors in parks, or among artists. It would be fascinating to explore ac-
counts of these passive points of encounter and the impact they might have had on 
an emerging Quebecois identity decades before the Quiet Revolution. Certainly, in 
terms of infrastructure, there are parallels between the experience of French Cana-
dians and Yiddish-speaking Jews of the first half of the twentieth century in their 
ventures to preserve and promote a language-centered culture. Both groups, for 
example, heavily employed secular education to meet their goals. However, the his-
torical contexts are so radically divergent that the parallel becomes almost anach-
ronistic. French Quebecers successfully elevated the status of their language to the 
dominant vernacular in a newly secularized society after centuries of suppression, 
and they did so with full political and financial support of a state with strong sepa-
ratist leanings. In contrast, Canada’s Jews as a group voluntarily acculturated into the 
English milieu within a generation of their arrival in Canada while simultaneously 
128 Rebecca Margolis / Oyfn Veg Session Two Discussion
maintaining strong ties to their Yiddish culture. Anctil presents Yiddish speakers as 
an idealized case of language maintenance and social conscience when, in fact, they 
all too soon adopted the dominant language of Canadian life and achieved upward 
mobility, a trend he criticizes historians for highlighting: “a closer examination of 
Yiddish history will probably provide us with new insights on how the country was 
progressively exposed to new notions of artistic creativity, social justice and work-
ing class solidarity, in forms that Canadians could not quite bring to fruition from 
their own internal perspective.” There was never a question, even among its most 
ardent activists, that Yiddish would serve as lingua franca longterm for Canadian 
Jewry; Yiddish Jews with any separatist aspirations looked to faraway Birobidzhan. 
The extent of this voluntary linguistic assimilation, which represented the ticket to 
successful integration into Canada, is evidenced by the fact that all of these Yiddish 
activists’ children became English speakers, even those who remained fluent Yiddish 
speakers and have made great contributions to the promotion of Yiddish: Irving 
Massey (son of Ida Maza), Goldie Morgentaler (daughter of Chava Rosenfarb), David 
Roskies (scholar of Yiddish), to name just a few. 
Despite the significance of Yiddish documentation to understanding the Jewish Ca-
nadian experience and the importance of translation to rendering them accessible 
to a wider public, there has not been much traction in this area. It is no coincidence 
that all of the French-language translations mentioned in the article are by Anctil 
himself, or by Chantal Ringuet, who studied with Anctil as a postdoctoral student 
at the University of Ottawa. Anctil, who has devoted himself tirelessly to the study 
of Yiddish and consulting with native speakers as needed to unearth, translate and 
annotate a vast corpus of Yiddish prose, essays and memoirs, has opened up access to 
sources on the Montreal Jewish immigrant experience that would otherwise remain 
completely unknown. As a Canadian scholar and teacher of Yiddish Studies myself, 
I certainly wish this dedication to exploring and rendering Yiddish works in trans-
lation was a wider trend among scholars and translators in Canada but there is, at 
present, no evidence of this. Anctil’s French renditions of the memoirs of Israel Me-
dres did inspire Vivian Felsen, Medres’s own granddaughter, to translate her grand-
father’s writings into English. However, his vast body of Yiddish translations into 
French have not given birth to a school of translators or scholars of Yiddish Canada 
within French circles. The situation is not much better in English circles, where one 
likewise cannot point to the emergence of a new group of scholars or translators. 
The English works cited by Anctil are largely the products of individuals who stem 
from the milieu when Yiddish was a widely spoken language among the immigrant 
generation, and who translate for the sheer pleasure of it. These pursuits are not 
attracting younger scholars or translators. Why might this be the case?
The answer has to do with resources. The study or translation of Yiddish is not backed 
by any infrastructure in Canada. While there is support available to Yiddish trans-
lators from American organization, notably the Yiddish Books Center in Amherst, 
129Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes, vol. 21, 2013 [2014]
MA, Yiddish translation in Canada has no institutional home. Rather, pursuits in 
Yiddish translation into both official languages are fractured, with individuals largely 
working in isolation. There is no shared forum, and, perhaps most importantly, no 
institutional support. In short, as Anctil’s essay indicates, Yiddish remains a labour of 
love. Without an easily accessible milieu in which to learn and use Yiddish, accessing 
Yiddish beyond the walls of a classroom is difficult, and oftentimes lonely indeed. 
Concluding remarks
Perhaps the greatest contribution of these studies by Robinson and Anctil’s is the 
ways in which they offer new possibilities for discussion. I have every intention of 
assigning them to my students in Jewish Canadian Studies to provide a glimpse into 
the state of the field. This fruitful exchange marks part of the great legacy of Gerald 
Tulchinsky.
1 
See, for example, Richard Menkis’s analysis, 
which suggests that the opposition to Hart’s 
taking office was an expression of anti-British 
sentiment. Richard Menkis, “Antisemitism 
in the Evolving Nation: From New France to 
1950.” In From Immigration To Integration, The 
Canadian Jewish Experience: A Millennium 
Edition. (Ed) Frank Dimant and Ruth Klein 
(Toronto: B’nai Brith Canada, Institute for 
International Affairs, 2001), 31-51.
2 
For example, Jonathan Judaken, “So What’s 
New? Rethinking the ‘New Antisemitism’ in a 
Global Age,” Patterns of Prejudice, 42:4 (2008): 
531-560.


English

Oyfn Veg: Session Two Discussion

Bialystok, Franklin

La Route devant Nous - Introduction, Oyfn Veg: Symposium en etudes juives canadiennes en l'honneur de Gerald Tulchinsky

Biggs-Craft, Katherine

144
Katherine Biggs-Craft / From the End to the Beginning: 
Archiving the History of a Small Jewish Community
Katherine Biggs-Craft 
Curator, Saint John Jewish Historical Museum
From the End to the Beginning: Archiving the 
History of a Small Jewish Community
145Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes, vol. 23, 2015
Saint John, New Brunswick is the childhood home of movie mogul, Louis B. Mayer 
and of corporate giant, Nathan Cummings. The city’s Jewish community can also 
boast of having had a Canadian senator, a mayor, a provincial Boy Scout commission-
er, a lieutenant-governor, a provincial court judge and the founder of the Canadian 
Thyroid Foundation, among others. All of their stories, and many others, can be 
found in the archives of the Saint John Jewish Historical Museum.
Saint John’s first Jewish resident came with the Loyalists who arrived from New 
York in 1783, although a viable Jewish community did not develop until 1858 with the 
arrival of Solomon Hart and his family from England. By the 1890s there were about 
25 Jewish families in the city. That number grew rapidly from 1892 to the end of the 
1920s with an influx from Eastern Europe escaping the pogroms and the aftermath 
of the First World War. The community had more than 200 families when the two 
early synagogues – the Ahavith Achim (Brotherly Love) and the Hazen Avenue – 
merged to form the Shaarei Zedek Synagogue in 1918. Refugees from Nazi dominat-
ed Europe arrived in 1938 and 1939 and after the war. These waves of immigration 
led to what has been referred to as the “Golden Years” from the 1920s to the 1960s. 
The Saint John Jewish community had between 200 and 300 families participating in 
all synagogue activities and supported many Jewish causes and educational endeav-
ours through many Zionist and social organizations. Jewish-owned stores lined 
the city’s main streets and thrived for decades. Dramatic change came in the 1960s, 
as the third generation of Jewish residents were presented with educational and 
economic opportunities which drew them from Saint John to larger cities in other 
parts of Canada and the United States. They would return to Saint John as visitors 
having found homes and raised families elsewhere, however they still recognized 
Saint John as “home”.
The Boyaner family, 
ca. 1900. The Saint 
John Jewish Historical 
Museum.
146
Katherine Biggs-Craft / From the End to the Beginning: 
Archiving the History of a Small Jewish Community
By 1983, there were about 55 families left in the city, most of them senior citizens. 
Plans were developed for a community reunion to coincide with the Bicentennial 
Celebrations for the Province of New Brunswick in 1984. What became known as 
the Koom Ahaim (Come Home) brought 500 “ex-patriots” to the city for a three day 
period to reminisce, remember and renew community ties. 
After the event ended, thought was given to the idea of creating a small museum 
to tell the story of the Saint John Jewish community. Marcia Koven, a community 
member and committee member for the reunion, founded the Saint John Jewish 
Historical Society, rented a small studio office and began, in earnest, to collect pho-
tographs, memorabilia, and artifacts to preserve and tell the story of the community. 
The collection began with photographs from synagogue and organization dinners, 
family photographs from the early 20th century, minutes and correspondence from 
the congregation and ladies’ organizations and family trees. Marcia Koven also con-
ducted oral interviews with more than sixty people who had lived in Saint John. 
The collection grew with documents, artifacts and memorabilia brought in from 
basements and attics in Jewish homes across the city and then by mail from other 
parts of Canada and the United States. In 1990 several dozen boxes of minutes and 
correspondence from the congregation and many organizations were found in the 
balcony of the former Shaarei Zedek Synagogue building and these too were added 
to the collections. The collection continues to grow as older Jewish residents in the 
city downsize from family homes. Donations include personal and family histories 
as well as their contributions to the many organizations which had existed. Almost 
two thousand family photographs have been added within the last two years. Each 
new box reveals new treasures and new information about the Jewish community. 
Additional boxes of documentation of community families and organizations are 
anticipated to join the collection in the coming months.
The Saint John Jewish Historical Museum houses the only Jewish archives east of 
Montreal. As such, we have become a crucial link in the preservation of Jewish his-
tory. The focus of our collection is the Jewish community that existed in Saint John 
from the mid 1850s to the present day, but we have also gathered family and commu-
nity history from smaller New Brunswick Jewish communities. For example, the ar-
chivist of the Bathurst (New Brunswick) Heritage Trust Commission researched the 
history of more than fifteen Jewish families that lived in Bathurst and neighbouring 
communities. The document extends to more than 60 pages, includes genealogical 
information and business advertisements, and clarifies some of the links between the 
families of Bathurst to each other and to families elsewhere in the province. We were 
pleased to receive a copy for our archives.
147Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes, vol. 23, 2015
Our archival holdings have been organized into sections reflecting the themes of 
the community’s history: Synagogue, Organizations, Community, Family Trees and 
Personal History, Saint John Jewish Historical Society, and Photographs. Smaller sec-
tions include the Holocaust, Fine Arts and Audio/Visual. Short descriptions have 
been written to describe each of these sections and a full listing of contents has been 
created. Most of these listings are currently under review as new acquisitions are ac-
cessioned, organized and added. It is hoped that all sections will be updated over the 
next few months. This process will improve access to our collections. We also have 
a large collection of objects which have been donated and are used for display and 
research of the community history.
Portions of the archives have been preserved with the cooperation of the Provincial 
Archives of New Brunswick (PANB). All material acquired from 1983 to 2005 has 
been copied on microfilm, copies of which are held by the PANB. The PANB with 
funding from the National Archival Development Plan was able to transfer the au-
dio from the more than 60 oral interviews recorded in the 1980s to MP3 files. The 
original cassettes remain at the PANB, but the MP3 files were returned to the Jewish 
Museum archives where they are regularly consulted.
More recently we have worked with the Canadian Jewish Heritage Network to share 
some of the information from our archives, particularly the Shaarei Zedek Cemetery 
database, including obituaries and photographs of gravestones, and the data on Jew-
ish residents and businesses as compiled from the city directories for Saint John. A 
searchable database can be found at http://www.cjhn.ca. Descriptions of the archival 
holdings will be added over the next few months as these are updated.
In 1989 Marcia Koven wrote and published a history of the Saint John Jewish com-
munity – Weaving the Past Into the Present – which was revised and updated in 2008. 
This slender volume recounts the history of the Jewish community from its be-
ginnings and through its “Golden Years” to the present day. Readers learn about 
the history of the synagogues, the organizations, and many of the interesting and 
accomplished individuals who made up the community. The book is also illustrated 
with several archival photographs.
148
Katherine Biggs-Craft / From the End to the Beginning: 
Archiving the History of a Small Jewish Community
Material from our archival collections has been extensively used by our curator and 
student researchers to gather information for exhibitions. Over the past 28 years 
we have presented exhibitions on various topics including immigration, weddings, 
businesses, organizations, men, women, medical professionals, war service, no-
table members of the community, athletes, artists, and family trees. We have also 
created two online exhibitions through the Community Memories Programme 
from the Canadian Heritage Information Network – The Changing Role of Jew-
ish Women in Saint John (http://www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseum.ca/sgc-cms/
histoires_de_chez_nous-community_memories/pm_v2.php?lg=English&ex-
=00000538&fl=0&id=exhibit_home) and 150 Years of Jewish History in Saint John 
(http://www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseum.ca/Search.do?R=VE_2192&lang=en&ex=on). 
Over the past twenty-five years we have welcomed researchers into our archives – 
students, academics, genealogists, and members of our extended community - to 
learn more about their Saint John relatives. As many of our requests come from 
cities far from Saint John, we are often faced with the question of how to share the 
information. When researchers come to us they can make notes or photograph or 
photocopy documents. Over the past few years, we have spent a lot of time making 
digital copies of photographs and documents and sending them out by mail on a CD 
or sending them through electronic storage platforms (e.g. www.dropbox.com).
The Saint John Jewish Historical Museum regularly receives requests for informa-
tion about families that lived in the city many years ago. Most searches for family 
information of this type begin in the cemetery database created in 1997. It lists all the 
burials in the Shaarei Zedek Cemetery. If an individual was buried in the cemetery, 
we can reference photographs of the gravestone and the obituary published in one 
of Saint John’s newspapers. From there, it is on to the databases of names culled 
Shaarei Zedek Synagogue Dinner, ca. 1930s. The Saint 
John Jewish Historical Museum.
149Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes, vol. 23, 2015
from the Saint John City Directories to see where they lived and their occupation. 
Documents in the Personal History section of the archives – newspaper clippings, 
immigration papers, certificates, and programmes – add to the personal story. There 
are also some family trees which can help to place the person into the context of the 
extended family. Additional information may be found in the files on the history of 
the Synagogue and various Jewish organizations if the person played a significant 
role in their operations. Matching a face to a name brings the story to life. A search 
of the photograph files can provide both family and organization photographs.
Clearly a simple inquiry can lead down many paths, and what one might think is a 
matter of only a few minutes of research can quickly extend into many hours of dis-
covery. Every search uncovers yet another family connection within the Saint John 
Jewish community and adds new meaning to the documents consulted. There is also 
the opportunity to add new information to our archives – checking sources in other 
archives and libraries to verify or add data to the request. Afterwards, there is always 
the hope that our archives will acquire the results of the researcher’s efforts – per-
haps a new family tree or bundle of documents or photographs. 
What is most remarkable about the archival collection is its personal nature. The 
archives is a story of people and their connections to the community through mem-
bership and involvement in the synagogue and in organizations, as well as their 
careers as business owners, professionals or volunteers. Almost all of our holdings 
have been donated by community members and these reflect their involvement in 
the community. For example, treasurers and recording secretaries have donated the 
papers accumulated during their times in office. Some individuals who have had 
significant personal careers outside the boundaries of Jewish life have chosen our 
archives as the resting place for many of their personal papers. This is truly a mark 
of esteem and trust in our ability to ensure their posterity.
The nature of our archives also determines the presentation of exhibits in the Saint 
John Jewish Historical Museum. Visitors to the Museum, whose exposure to our 
history is generally confined to our exhibit rooms and conversations with student do-
cents or community volunteers, often make note of the personal nature of the Muse-
um. The history is accessible and most visitors can relate easily to the stories they are 
told. It is not unusual to have community volunteers showing photographs and shar-
ing stories of their own families, to the delight of tourists from across North America 
and around the world. This is an experience that cannot be found in every museum.
As a small archives we face many challenges. These include the availability of ar-
chival space, proper storage of documents and photographs, availability of human 
resources, public awareness of our archives, and of course, funding to maintain the 
collection. Meeting these challenges requires effort that often limits the time needed 
to accession, organize, analyze, and share the collections. With the greater exposure 
150
Katherine Biggs-Craft / From the End to the Beginning: 
Archiving the History of a Small Jewish Community
of our collections through partnerships with the Canadian Jewish Heritage Network, 
the Virtual Museum of Canada, and others, we hope for an increased profile for our 
archives and our Museum which may ensure our long term sustainability.
On a personal note, I want to add that I came to this position as an outsider and with 
virtually no knowledge of Jewish life in Saint John. Now, after nearly 28 years of 
accessioning and archiving the history of the Saint John Jewish Community, I have 
learned some very interesting things about this community. First, this was a very 
close knit community because of its small size and family connections. When cur-
rent and former residents talk about life here, the reminiscences always come with 
names and stories that include (with fondness) family and friends. Second, it would 
seem that almost every family that lived here was related to one or more other fam-
ilies residing in the city. Almost every day I make new links between the community 
members, and have come to believe that were I able to write down the name of every 
Jewish resident who had ever lived in the city, I would be able to link almost all of 
them together into one very large family tree. Third, many of those whose stories are 
preserved within our archives express gratitude for the Archives and Museum and 
the hope that these stories will not be irretrievably lost. My hope is that this goal has 
been achieved. 
As the Saint John Jewish community embarks on a period of renewal with new im-
migration to the city, this time from Israel, we look forward to colleting the stories 
and memorabilia from a new generation of Saint John Jews, so that there will always 
be a new beginning for our collections and not an end.


From the End to the Beginning: Archiving the History of a Small Jewish Community

Anctil, Pierre

"Nit ahin un nit aher": Yiddish Scholarship in Canada

Robinson, Ira

REVIEW: Elizabeth Popham (ed.), "A. M. Klein: the Letters"

Rosen, Janice

120
Janice Rosen / Introduction: Small communities with long histories... 
/Des petites communautés avec de longues histoires...
Janice Rosen
Introduction: Small communities with long histories ... 
/  Des petites communautés avec de longues histoires...
121Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes, vol. 23, 2015
Introduction: Small communities with long histories ... 
This second collection of articles for The Archives Matter focuses on small Jew-
ish communities across Canada. In these articles the authors seek to tell the stories 
of their communities through the archival records that provide information about 
them, and to hint at more sources which still await exploration by new generations 
of researchers.
In this section you will find articles from two very distinct settlements in Alberta, 
Calgary in the south, and Edmonton, further north. Debby Shoctor, former archivist 
of the Jewish Archives and Historical Society of Northern Alberta, takes us from the 
remaining traces of the earliest far-flung settlements in the province through to 
the Jewish community records of modern Edmonton. Agi Romer Segal of the Jewish 
Historical Society of Southern Alberta gives us a fascinating snapshot of the Calgary 
Jewish community using an unlikely and ephemeral resource: dance cards belonging 
to a community member from a well-known family. 
Manitoba’s Jewish settlement history is described by Ava Block Super through the 
lens of the archives of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada, located in 
Winnipeg. She demonstrates how much has been - and still can be - written and 
displayed about this varied and vibrant city using the community’s historical resources. 
From far further to the east, Katherine Biggs-Craft of the Saint John Jewish Histor-
ical Museum presents a case history of a small Jewish community in New Brunswick 
that took charge of the preservation of its past using multiple levels of community 
involvement. Her description of the numerous ways in which archival resources can 
be mined to yield information about a family’s history will surely whet the appetite 
of our readers to plunge into an archives to begin their own research.
Janice Rosen, Archives Matter Editor 
Canadian Jewish Congress CC National Archives 
Canadian Jewish Heritage Network
122
Janice Rosen / Introduction: Small communities with long histories... 
/Des petites communautés avec de longues histoires...
Des petites communautés avec de longues histoires...
Cette deuxième série d’articles pour Les Archives importent est consacrée aux pe-
tites communautés juives du Canada. Dans ces articles, les auteur-e-s souhaitent 
raconter les histoires de leur communauté à travers les archives disponibles et à 
chercher de nouvelles sources pour les futures générations de chercheur-e-s.
Dans cette section, vous trouverez des articles à propos de deux villages/colonies en 
Alberta, très différents l’un de l’autre, Calgary au sud, et Edmonton plus au nord. 
Debby Shoctor, ancienne archiviste de la Jewish Archives and Historical Society of 
Northern Alberta, nous emmène sur les traces des colonies les plus anciennes et les 
plus reculées de la province jusqu'aux archives communautaires juives modernes 
d’Edmonton. Agi Romer Segal de la Jewish Historical Society of Southern Alberta dresse 
un portrait fascinant de la communauté juive de Calgary à travers une source inat-
tendue et éphémère: les carnets de bal d’un membre d’une famille très connue dans 
la communauté.
Ava Block écrit l’histoire de la colonisation juive du Manitoba au prisme des archives 
du Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada qui se trouve à Winnipeg. Elle revient sur 
tout ce qui a été écrit et tout ce qui reste encore à écrire sur cette ville aux multiples 
facettes, grâce aux archives et aux ressources historiques de la communauté.
Bien plus loin à l’Est, Katherine Biggs-Craft du Saint John Jewish Historical Museum 
s’intéresse au travail de conservation et de préservation d’une petite communauté 
juive du Nouveau Brunswick, un travail qui a mobilisé la communauté à différents 
niveaux. Sa description des nombreuses façons de faire parler l’archive pour recons-
truire une histoire familiale va sûrement donner envie à nos lecteurs de plonger à 
leur tour dans une archive et de commencer leur propre recherche.
Janice Rosen, rédactrice en chef de la section Archives Matter 
Archives nationales du Congrès juif canadien, Comité des charités 
Réseau canadien du patrimoine juif


Introduction: Small communities with long histories .../Des petites communautés avec de longues histoires...

Block Super, Ava

138 Ava Block Super / Preserving Winnipeg’s Jewish history
Ava Block Super 
Archivist, Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada (JHCWC)
Preserving Winnipeg’s Jewish History 
139Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes, vol. 23, 2015
Imagine settling in or around Winnipeg, in the late 19th century in the middle of De-
cember. If you were fortunate enough to end up in Winnipeg, home was a in a poor 
neighbourhood comprised of flimsily-built shanties that could not withstand the 
intense cold of a prairie winter. Conditions were not much better for the immigrants 
who chose to make rural Manitoba and Saskatchewan their home. The Jewish Heri-
tage Centre of Western Canada has many documents and papers of Manitoba’s early 
Jewish settlers. These people were resourceful, diverse, creative, and tough enough 
to withstand the rigours of doing with less. The archives of the JHCWC have enabled 
authors like Rabbi Arthur Chiel, Harry Gutkin, and Allan Levine to write compre-
hensive histories on the Jews of Manitoba, and the surrounding prairie.
Whether in Winnipeg or on rural homesteads, Jews sought to build community. In 
time, they built synagogues and schools; Jewish religious schools (the Talmud Torah) 
along with middle-of-the-road Yiddish Schools (the Peretz Shul), and left-leaning 
Yiddish Language secular schools (Liberty Temple). What made Winnipeg unique is 
that there was a place for every type of Jew, from the religious to the humanist. Our 
archives celebrate the urban Jew, the more affluent Jew, the erudite, and the simple 
everyday Jew. 
Anthony Astrachan, a writer, editor, and foreign correspondent for the Washington Post, 
commented on the enduring power of Winnipeg’s Jews after visiting the city in 1973. 
He wrote in the U.S. Jewish Magazine Present Tense that “the community’s celebrated 
vitality was based on five key ingredients: political activism, radicalism, a vital Yiddish 
culture mixed with universal Jewish devotion to education, a prairie mystique and of 
course the geographic isolation that has made Winnipeg the centre of its own diaspora.”1
Winnipeg Talmud Torah school, 1955. Jewish Heritage 
Centre of Western Canada.
140 Ava Block Super / Preserving Winnipeg’s Jewish history
The cultural life of immigrants was always rich. Whether in theatre, literature or 
sport, the Jewish community mirrored the community at large, and succeeded be-
yond anyone’s imagined expectations. Our archive boasts of having the manuscripts 
and Yiddish letters written by the award winning author Adele Wiseman to her 
family. A finding aid was recently completed, and we are expecting to have it posted 
to our website shortly. 
The actor Frances Bay (Goffman) left the Jewish Heritage Centre her photographs, 
letters, scripts and many of her personal papers. Frances was born in Manville Al-
berta, but moved to and was raised in Dauphin Manitoba, and throughout her career 
returned home numerous times, as her husband Charles is also from Dauphin.
The YMHA was tremendously important to the cultural life of the Jewish commu-
nity. The Archives has hundreds of photographs and articles documenting its evolu-
tion from the early 1930s to the present day on the Asper Campus. 
Opening of the Win-
nipeg YMHA in 1950. 
Jewish Heritage Centre 
of Western Canada.
141Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes, vol. 23, 2015
The Jewish Community was ahead of its time with regards to social services. After 
the Winnipeg General strike in 1919, Jews learned that if they failed to look after one 
another no one else would look after them, regardless of religious or political affil-
iations. The most pressing need was care for the young and the old. The Archives 
has plenty of photos and documents tracing the history of both The Jewish Old Folks 
Home and the Esther Robinson Jewish Orphan Home. 
Jewish doctors also made a significant contribution. In the 1920s Mount Carm-
el clinic was formed by a group of Jewish medical professionals who volunteered 
their services for free to the large number of Jewish immigrants who immigrated to 
Winnipeg in the early 20th century. Perhaps the most enduring quality is that those 
who offered services within the Jewish community were eager and willing to share 
their services with the greater community. Services at the Mount Carmel clinic were 
offered free of charge for the Jew and non-Jew alike. The only prerequisite was to 
be impoverished. The Mount Carmel Clinic still exists to this day, and still serves 
the inner city, only now it has been incorporated by the Winnipeg Regional Health 
Authority and is no longer owned and run exclusively by Jews. 
The Esther Robinson Jewish Orphan Home, ca. 1920.  
Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada.
142 Ava Block Super / Preserving Winnipeg’s Jewish history
The Jewish community also produced socially-conscious lawyers who served not 
only the Jewish community but were city counsellors. They broke many barriers, 
paving the way for future generations of Jews to become involved in civic, provincial 
and federal politics. The JHCWC Archives has a collection of articles and letters by 
M.J. Finkelstein, a prominent lawyer who served the Jewish community very well, and 
was involved in some very high profile cases. In 1910 he joined with Nathanial F. Hagel, 
one of the top lawyers in Canada, to defend a Russian Radical named Saava Federenko. 
Finkelstein was the first Jewish Lawyer in Manitoba appointed to the Kings Counsel.
The JHC also has a large digital file on Maitland Steinkopf, son of prominent Lawyer 
Max Steinkopf, who was the first Jewish lawyer to be called to the Manitoba bar. 
On the other end of the pole but equally important was the left-wing lawyer Jo-
seph Alter Cherniak. Cherniak championed many causes, but is probably best known 
for challenging the quota system that barred Jews from attending the University of 
Manitoba’s School of Medicine. He was pivotal in the anti-Fascist league. He was 
also a Yiddishist, with a flair for theatre. The Archives has many of Cherniak’s letters 
and papers. Not only do we have J.A. Cherniak’s papers, but we have those of his son, 
Saul Cherniak, who held several cabinet posts in Ed Shreyer’s NDP cabinet in the late 
1960s and throughout the 1970s.
Winnipeg Jews played a major role in radical politics between 1905 and 1960. This is 
especially well-documented in the Jewish Heritage publication Jewish Life and Times 
Volume VIII, Jewish Radicalism in Winnipeg 1905-1960, edited by Dan Stone. All the 
Life and Times books are compilations of scholarly essays, and are a wonderful re-
source for anyone wishing to research a specific topic on Winnipeg Jewry, be it fem-
inism, religion, secularism, literature or even radical politics.
Our exhibitions depend heavily upon the Archives, without which we wouldn’t have 
the necessary materials. Our Yiddish newspapers, some of which are over 100 years 
old, were recently digitized. This means they are far more accessible for researchers. 
Our photograph collection of over 5000 photographs is an integral part of any exhi-
bition we do. The JHCWC mounts at least two major exhibitions per year, plus ‘mini’ 
exhibitions that accompany our programs. 
Our latest exhibition deals with the garment industry, curated jointly by my col-
leagues Stan Carbone and Susan Turner. Jews in Winnipeg ran the garment industry 
in its heyday through the 1940s-1960s. The garment industry is what gave Jews eco-
nomic stability and prominence. It is what links this exhibition to the present that 
makes it relevant. This exhibition depended heavily on oral histories, photographs, 
and artifacts that are part of our collection
The Archives is the memory keeper of the Jewish community. Perhaps the biggest 
challenge we have right now is getting younger people to recognize its worth.
143Canadian Jewish Studies / Études juives canadiennes, vol. 23, 2015
1 
Allan Levine, Coming of Age: A History of the 
Jewish People of Manitoba (Winnipeg: Jewish 
Heritage Centre of Western Canada, 2009), 21.


Preserving Winnipeg’s Jewish History

Frank, Esther

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