The Second Wave
Following the immigrants who settled in Berlin (Kitchener) in the early 20th century, a second significant wave of immigration took place in the 1920s. Many of the immigrants who came at this time were from Eastern Europe. Many came to Kitchener after spending several years in Toronto. For example, Samuel and Dora Siderson, natives of Russia, met in Toronto around 1916, were married and came to Kitchener in the mid-1920s. Others, such as David and Bessie Brown, Irving Somer, Israel Rosen, John Strauss and Jacob Matlow came to Kitchener because they had relatives already there.
Many of the new arrivals set up shops on King Street in the heart of Kitchener. Some of the families lived in apartments above their stores, while others located close to Highway 7 to facilitate travel to buy merchandise in other towns. Furniture stores, men’s and ladies’ clothing shops and larger department stores were all features of Jewish business in downtown Kitchener. According to Eli Matlow, whose family ran the Goodwill Department Store for fifty years, downtown Kitchener in the 1940s had several dozen Jewish-owned businesses. Many of these were clothing stores. Gordon Strauss, a lifelong resident and respected leader of the community, estimated that of the 16 men’s wear stores there at that time, 13 belonged to Jews.
Clothing stores were a wise investment in small communities because they could be launched on a small scale and built up successfully over time. In Kitchener, the Budd brothers bought Jack Davis’s successful men’s wear store, renamed it Budds and expanded its range of merchandise. Several years later, Irving Somer established a clothing store next door to Budds, naming it the Red Front Department Store Ltd. (later changed to Somer’s). Archie Zacks set up a ladies' wear business on King Street. His sons later took over and were responsible for expanding it so that they grew to more than 25 stores located across Ontario. For fine furs, people could shop at the stores of Bill Kosky or Wolfe Feldman. As well, there was Central Furniture owned by the Browns, Jack Strauss’s Star Cleaners and serving local industry was the Levenes’ Ontario Die Company. These businesses and many others benefited from Kitchener-Waterloo’s broad base of clients.
