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On November 11th the OJA organized a Remembrance Day event at the Lipa Green Centre in the Tamari Family Hall. We were fortunate to have approximately 55 veterans in attendance, many of whom arrived in uniform with their medals, accompanied by family members. Although most of them served in the Canadian forces during the Second World War, we also had a significant number in attendance who were part of the Allied forces or the Machal during the War of Independence. A record number of Lipa Green Centre staff, in the range of 90 people or more, was also present. A few of the veterans revealed that they had never been to this building before and all expressed how pleased they were to be invited to take part in the Federation ceremony.

The ceremony began with a message from UJA Federation President, Ted Sokolsky, welcoming everyone and discussing the importance of honouring our veterans. He also informed the crowd about a new program that Federation is launching to support Jewish veterans in need. He was followed by Norm Gardner, from the Jewish War Veterans of Canada, who delivered the main address. Cantor David Rosen from Beth Radom Congregation gave a moving version of the prayer for fallen soldiers, as well as the Canadian and Israeli national anthems. 

There was an informal reception held after the ceremony. This provided us with the opportunity to chat with the veterans and discuss new programs, such as the oral history initiative and Jewish Museum project, that are in progress.

The OJA has been working on a home movie project for the past year. We have been actively collecting home movies dating from the 1920s until the 1950s that document Jewish Toronto. The archival films have been digitized to make these wonderful depictions of early Jewish life in Toronto more accessible. The footage documents themes such as simchas (weddings, anniversaries, bar mitzvahs), recreation, Jewish camps, travel and important events within the community.

One of the largest collections that the OJA possesses is that of Dr. A.I. Willinsky, one of the first Jewish doctors to practice in Toronto and an early photography and film enthusiast. His films document the construction of Holy Blossom Temple in 1937 as well as his family's activities, adventures and travels. You can view clips from our films a number of films from our collection on our YouTube channel. 

For those who are interested in donating home movies to the Ontario Jewish Archives or learning more about the home movie project, please contact the OJA.

Responding to depression-era anti-Semitism in Canada, the Canadian Jewish Congress and B’nai Brith together established in 1938 a new joint committee. Since then the Joint Community Relations Committee has documented racist threats in Canada; initiated advocacy activities to work for improved civil rights; promoted legislation combating hate; worked to ensure equality of access to employment, education and accommodation; and investigated specific incidents of discrimination. The JCRC, for example, played a key role in achieving the Anti-Discrimination Act of 1944, and the Fair Employment Practices Act of 1951, key steps leading to Canada’s current Human Rights Code.

The textual records of the Ontario Region JCRC were originally created and maintained by the Canadian Jewish Congress, whose Toronto office donated them to the Ontario Jewish Archives. Although the files had been previously listed, access for research purposes remained extremely difficult. To correct this problem, the OJA is now reorganizing the JCRC records, applying national descriptive standards to ensure ease of understanding and access for future researchers. Guided by archivist George Wharton, and utilizing the efforts of three of our volunteers over the past year, approximately 24 metres of files have now been re-organized into five large sub-series to more precisely document the decisions and activities of the JCRC. 

September 2010 marks the completion of the initial phase of this major project, involving records from 1938 to 1978. Phase two will involve the further sorting of the files into sub-series.

Several months ago the OJA acquired records created by Bernard Yale after initiating a drive to document the experiences of Jewish veterans who served during the Second World War. Bernard served in the Royal Canadian Air Force as a photographer. He arrived in England in 1944 and was shortly thereafter posted to 443 Squadron, 144 Wing (a Spitfire Wing) in the town of Ford. While stationed there, he was responsible for servicing cinegun cameras that captured the damage caused each time the Spitfires fired ammunition at a target.

From Ford, Bernard moved with his squadron to various other towns; including, St. Croix Sur Mer (during the invasion of Normandy), Chartres, Louvain and other towns in Belgium and Holland. In 1945, his squadron began moving into Germany and encountered slave labourers who had just been liberated. Soon after, Bernard was posted to serve in the occupation forces with 84 Group Disarmament Staff. His unit was responsible for disarming and dismantling the German air force. As part of this unit, Bernard processed photographs of Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp guards, the burning of the wooden quarters used for Bergen Belsen’s inmates, and other structures and remains found there. A squadron leader in Bernard’s unit, Ted Aplin, organized Sunday picnics for the children of Bergen Belsen during the summer of 1945. Bernard captured many photographs of these outings.

The Yale accession consists of photographs and textual records that document Bernard's activities in the Royal Canadian Airforce during the Second World War. Included are images of Bernard and his photography school classmates, shots taken just after the Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp was liberated, such as, photographs of captured S.S. guards and of the Sunday picnics organized for the children, and images taken by Bernard while he was on leave.

These records are of great value, since there are very few photographs in existence that include interactions between Canadian servicemen and Holocaust survivors. The images of the survivor children frolicing in the fields with the soldiers are truly amazing. They will likely be incorporated into exhibits mounted by the Toronto Holocaust Centre and perhaps other Holocaust Centres in North America.

In 2009, the OJA acquired the personal scrapbooks of famed Canadian boxer, Sammy Luftspring. Luftspring was born in 1916 in St. John’s Ward. He began boxing in 1932 and by 1936 was selected to join the Canadian Olympic team. He chose, however, to boycott the Berlin Olympics, which were being organized under Nazi-rule, and decided instead to attend an alternative event known as the People’s Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. After making the trip to Europe by ship, Sammy, along with fellow Toronto boxer Norman “Baby Yack”, faced the disappointment of having the event cancelled after the Civil War broke out on the eve of the opening ceremonies. Sammy returned to Toronto and began to box professionally, winning the Canadian welterweight championship in 1938, a title which he held for two years. 

Luftspring's career as a boxer ended in 1940, when an opponent’s thumb punctured his eye, detaching the retina and leaving him blind in one eye. He re-invented himself as a boxing referee, overseeing fights involving some of the greatest boxers of all time, including Mohammad Ali and George Chuvalo. He also opened up a number of nightclubs in Toronto such as the Mercury and Tropicana, which attracted famous entertainers such as Henry Youngman, Vic Damone and Tony Bennett. He passed away in 2000 at age 84.

The two scrapbooks donated to the OJA were created by Sammy Luftspring himself and reflect his personal life and career. The scrapbooks contain over 700 photographs, as well as invitations, postcards, newspaper clippings and other memorabilia. They were in very poor condition and required some basic conservation work. In order to protect the items in the scrapbooks from the acidic paper, acid-free tissue paper was inserted in between each page. In turn, a scanning project was initiated in order to protect the original scrapbooks. By creating a digital reproduction, information included in the original arrangement will remain accessible, while the objects themselves are granted a longer life span. 

So, over the course of two weeks in the summer of 2010, the Luftspring scrapbooks were digitized in their entirety by our summer intern, Emma Leverty. Scans were made of the original document size at 300 dpi and saved as TIFF files. The larger of the two scrapbooks (65 x 48 cm) needed to be scanned in three sections and then stitched together using a special software program. In total, over 400 scans were completed to create the 200 pages that make up the scrapbooks. Finally, individual photographs were selected and scanned and item level descriptions were completed for those images that were deemed to be of greatest archival value and likely to be of interest to the public.