Ontario Jewish Communities | Cornwall - First Jewish Settlers

Nathan Philips

Mayor Nathan Phillips and members of the Zionist Organization of Canada (Z.O.C.) welcome Israel's Ambassador to Canada in the Mayor's office, Toronto, ca. 1966.
Identified from left to right are: Allan Grossman M.P.P., Vice-President Z.O.C. Central Division; David Peters Q.C., President of Z.O.C. Central Division; Yaacov Herzog, Israeli Ambassador to Canada; Mayor Nathan Phillips; Harry Zifkin, President of the Toronto Zionist Council; and Dr. George J. Liban, Executive Director Z.O.C. Central Division and Toronto Zionist Council.
Ontario Jewish Archives, Zionist Organization of Canada fonds 28:6:99

Nathan Phillips was born 7 November 1892, in Brockville. Even though his parents' Montreal wedding had been marked by luxury, he grew up in difficult financial circumstances as his father was a poor businessman. Thanks to his mother's encouragement, his own hard work and savings, and financial backing from other family members, Nathan Phillips realized his dream of attending Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. He graduated and was called to the bar in 1913, the youngest in his class.

His upbringing as a Jew in Cornwall, and especially the advice and support given by his mother, shaped Nathan Phillips' path throughout his life. Mary Phillips inspired her children with stories of Britain's Jewish Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, and of Ezekiel Hart, the first Jew elected to a Canadian legislature (though as a Jew, Hart was never permitted to sit in Parliament). She encouraged her son to aim high and instructed him to remember his roots, saying: "Nathan, you have a grand Jewish heritage. I hope that you will always walk head erect and be proud of that heritage and never forsake the religion of your forefathers." Nathan Phillips' nephew Farrand Miller and his wife Joyce remember that "Uncle Nate" remained a devoted son. During all the years of the Phillips' duties and travels, "Granny Phillips" would receive weekly reports by letter, written by Nathan Phillips' wife Esther.

Nathan Phillips was also one of Toronto's most popular mayors. His practice of meeting with all groups, classes, and organizations in Toronto earned him the title "Mayor of All the People." With his beloved wife Esther (Lyons) Phillips, known as "Ett", by his side, Phillips became a symbol at home and around the world of a new, post-war, cosmopolitan Toronto. His greatest achievement was to carry forward the campaign for a new city hall. Plans included an international design competition that was won by Finnish architect Viljo Revell. A by-law adopted by the Toronto City Council on October 10, 1961, designated the area around the city's striking new municipal building as "Nathan Phillips Square" in honour of the mayor and in appreciation of his service to the people of Toronto.

Dr. Hiram Vineberg

Hiram Vineberg was born in 1858 in Russia. He came to Canada with his parents and settled in the Cornwall area, where the family owned a grocery business. At age 14, Vineberg ran away from home and eventually set up his own general store. Several years later he sold this store and used the proceeds to finance his medical studies at McGill. While there, he refused to take exams that were scheduled on Saturdays. The authorities at McGill allowed him to be tested on Mondays instead, but with more difficult questions. When Vineberg graduated in 1878, he was awarded the Holmes Gold Medal for having achieved the highest marks on his final examination.

After his graduation, Vineberg practiced in Montreal for a short while and then left on a series of adventures working as a ship's doctor from September to December, 1879. He sailed to England, New Zealand and Hawaii. In Hawaii, he worked as a doctor in charge of a district on the island of Oahu. At the close of 1879, Vineberg published a memoir of his travels, entitled Voyage from London to New Zealand on Sailing Ship. After returning from sea, Vineberg moved to Portage la Prairie, Manitoba and worked as a physician from 1881 to 1883. In a 1932 letter written to H. E. Wilder, editor of Winnipeg's Yiddish language newspaper, the Israelite Press, Vineberg wrote:

Although I was the only Jew in town I soon acquired the leading practice. There were four other physicians in the town. I was appointed Board of Health Officer. I was on intimate terms with the ministers (4 or 5) especially the Reverend Mr. Fortin, Minister of the Episcopal Church. I did not encounter any prejudice whatever, and there was no doubt as to my religion from the very first.

Following his departure from Manitoba, Vineberg decided to become a gynaecologist and went to study in Europe in the cities of Berlin, Danzig, Prague and Vienna. In 1886 he returned to North America and settled in New York, in 1886. In 1890, he was appointed to the outpatient gynaecology clinic at the Mount Sinai Hospital. He rose steadily in the hospital hierarchy, eventually receiving the rank of Consulting Gynaecologist. He was the first Vice President of the American Gynaecological Society and was a prolific writer, publishing nearly one hundred papers. Dr. Vineberg was known and respected for mentoring young physicians at Mount Sinai. When he retired in 1921, the hospital established a fellowship in his name. Vineberg died in 1945 at the age of 87, having practiced medicine for 65 years.

First Jewish Settlers

Cornwall's Jewish community is one of the oldest in Ontario. The first Jewish man known to have come to the area was Louis Ollendorf, a German Jew who immigrated in 1811 and worked as an innkeeper in Osnabruck. A few of the other early arrivals to the Cornwall area came from Germany; most were from Eastern Europe.

One of the earliest settlers was Alexander Vineberg, who came to the Cornwall area around 1860. His son Hiram arrived soon after. The family ran a grocery store. Hiram was an independent-minded young man with plenty of ambition and an unusual story. He fulfilled his ambition to become a medical doctor through studies at McGill University and then spent some seven years travelling as a doctor around the world. Another early settler was William Jacobs, who settled in Lancaster, near Cornwall, in 1864. William Jacobs' son, Samuel became a lawyer. He became an expert on Canada's railway law and eventually wrote a textbook on this subject.

Several of Cornwall's founding families grew into large clans. One example is the Miller family. Nathan and Dora Miller came to Canada from the Vilnius area of Poland around 1885. They arrived in Montreal with Nathan's older brother Jacob, who was married, but had temporarily left his family behind until he could get settled. They lived there for several years and Nathan and Dora's first two children were born in Quebec. Nathan and Jacob's youngest brother, Moses, later left with his wife for the United States, in 1886, where their first two children were born. Nathan, his brother Jacob and his family moved to Cornwall from Montreal around 1887. Jacob's wife and children joined them in 1889. Moses and his family followed suit in 1896. The family (except for their sister Rachel) was reunited when their parents and brother Abraham joined them from Poland that same year.

Probably Cornwall's most famous Jewish son was Toronto's first Jewish mayor, Nathan Phillips. His family, on both his mother's and his father's side, were early immigrants to the Cornwall area. Phillips' maternal grandparents, the Rosenblooms, had come from Lithuania to the Cornwall area, where Nathan Phillips' mother Mary was born. Mayor Phillips' father, Jacob Phillips, married Mary Rosenbloom in 1890 in Montreal.

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