First Jewish Settlers and Founding Families
Simon Oberndorffer, ca. 1900
Kingston is one of the oldest small Jewish communities in Ontario. Jews began arriving there in the early 1840s, when - for a few years - the city was the capital of the United Province of Canada.
In 1842, there were a total of only 350 Jews in all of Canada. Two of them, the German Jewish immigrants Abraham Nordheimer and his brother Samuel, were Kingston's first Jewish residents. The Nordheimers came to Kingston around 1840 and ran a music store in town for a few years. They then moved on to Toronto, where they became successful music dealers and piano manufacturers.
The first Jew to remain in Kingston until his death was Simon Oberndorffer, who arrived around 1857. He had come from Germany through New York, where he spent several years and learned the trade of cigar making. Both he and his German-born wife Cecilia became pillars of the Kingston community. Together they had 12 children, eight of whom survived into adulthood. Other early arrivals include Louis Hillman, a watchmaker and M. Myers, a furrier, both of whom arrived in the 1850s or early 60s. Solomon Hyman, a merchant from Poland, arrived in the early 1870s, followed by Arnold Levey and Samuel Jacobs.
Although the first Jewish immigrants to Kingston were German Jews, Jews from Eastern Europe came as well. They began arriving in the 1870s and 80s and by 1901, of the foreign-born Jews residing in Kingston, some 30 were German-born and over double that number Russian-born. Among the early Jewish settlers were the Lesses, Turks, Zacks, Susmans, Robinsons, Tevans, Abramskys, Abramsons, Bennets, Langborts, Circles and Cohens. These families settled, had children and formed the nucleus of Kingston's first Jewish community.
Carrying on the Tradition
Mort Abramsky talks about the legacy left by his pioneer forefathers, who instilled the values and practices of a good Jewish life in their children.
Interview with Mort Abramsky, 11 July 2007, Sharon Gubbay Helfer. OJA Oral History #322
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