Anti-Semitism
There is little if any anti-Semitism in Owen Sound today. However, the picture in earlier decades was mixed. Community members remember the days when there were signs at Wasaga Beach that read “No Jews or dogs.” Jews were not allowed to buy cottages at Sauble Beach. Memberships in the Granite Curling Club and the Golf Club were closed. Neither Jews nor Blacks were allowed in. Mike Rabovsky remembered that the kids at school would hold up three fingers, counting off: Jews/Killed/Christ. In the next generation, Bernie Fishman encountered hardly any anti-Semitism in school. Goldie Ronald, born in 1952, stated that neither she nor her children experienced any at all.
In the late 1940s to early 1950s, restrictive practices at the Golf Club were challenged by Mort Abrams. Abrams was a lawyer, born in Owen Sound. Together with local non-Jewish MPP Eddie Sargeant, he was able to get the restrictive clauses removed. He joined the club, as did Phillip Cadesky and Hy Fromstein. However, other club members were not happy. Some left because Jews were being admitted.
In recent years, the Jews of Owen Sound have enjoyed a very good relationship with the general community. The Beth Ezekiel Synagogue consistently gets the most visitors during the city’s annual Doors Open Ontario event. Lorne Rich recounts a touching story about a Dutch man who approached him during one of these events. The man’s parents had kept two boxes of dishes and other things for a Jewish family that perished during the Holocaust. The man had kept the boxes through the decades and was happy finally to be able to find a proper home for them.
