- Part Of
- Ida Lewis Siegel fonds
- Level
- Fonds
- Fonds
- 15
- Material Format
- multiple media
- Date
- 1892-1980
- Physical Description
- 60 cm of textual records and other material
- Admin History/Bio
- Ida Lewis Siegel (1885-1982) was instrumental in the founding and development of several prominent Jewish organizations, such as the Daughters of Zion, Hadassah-Wizo Organization of Canada, the Hebrew Ladies' Maternity Aid Society and the YM-YWHA She was also particularly active in the educational sector and in campaigning for the rights of female educators. She was internationally known for her devotion to Jewish learning and for her contributions to the development of the Toronto Jewish community.
- Ida was born to Samuel Lewis (b. 1859) and Hannah Ruth (Ticktin) Lewis (b. 1864) on 14 February 1885 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was the first child to be born in the United States after her parents immigrated from Lithuania. She had two brothers, Abe Lewis (b. 1880) and Charles S. Lewis (b. 1883). She attended elementary school in Pittsburgh, and in 1894, she and her family moved to Toronto.
- On 14 February 1905, Ida married Isidore Hirsch Siegel at the Elm Street Synagogue. Isidore was a travelling peddler, and later, owner of a store in Cochrane, Ontario. Together, they had six children: Rohama Lee (1905-?), Leah Gittel (Labovitz) (1907-2004), David Isar (1909-2004), Sarah (Sontag) (1912-1942), Avrom Fichel (1916-2010), and Rivka Hadassah (Gurau) (1923-2001).
- Ida is credited with helping to found a large number of Jewish philanthropic and social organizations including the Daughters of Zion, the first ladies' Zionist society in Canada (1899); the Herzl Girls' Club (1904); Hadassah-Wizo Organization of Canada (1916); the Hebrew Ladies' Sewing Circle, which developed into the Hebrew Ladies' Maternity Aid Society (1907); the YM-YWHA (1919); the Women’s League of the United Synagogues of America in Toronto (192-); the Goel Tzedec Sunday School (1914); and the Goel Tzedec Sisterhood (192-). She was also named honorary president of the Beth Tzedec Sisterhood in 1953. With the help of her brother Abe, Ida formed the first free Jewish Dispensary in Toronto, located on Elizabeth Street in the Ward, which was the forerunner to the Mount Sinai Hospital.
- Ida also helped form a unified fundraising body for the Jewish community known as the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies (1917), which would become the current UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. However, Ida was denied a seat on the executive after campaigning for a female representative.
- Always involved in the field of education, Ida was one of the original founders of the Home and School Association in 1919. In 1930, she became the first Jewish woman to be elected to the Toronto Board of Education, a post which she held for six years. She was later named honorary secretary of the Toronto Board of Jewish Education. In 1937, she ran unsuccessfully for alderman in Toronto, but remained politically active with the Association of Women's Electors. She was active in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom from 1915 onward and was an outspoken opponent of both world wars. Throughout her lifetime, Ida held the position of national vice-president of the Zionist Organization of Canada, sat on the executive board of the Canadian Jewish Congress and was a member of the Jewish Historical Society.
- Her religious affiliations were with Goel Tzedec, Beth Tzedec, Shaar Shomayim and the Beach Hebrew Institute.
- Custodial History
- The records were created by Ida Siegel and were in her possession until 1982. After her death, her son Avrom and daughter Rivka took possession of the records until they were donated to the archives in 1998 and 2004.
- Scope and Content
- Fonds consists of the records created and accumulated by Ida Siegel, documenting her personal and professional life, along with her philanthropic work. The types of records include personal reminiscences, diaries and memoirs, family correspondence, professional correspondence, speeches, scrapbooks, newsclippings, oral histories and photographs.
- Notes
- Includes 30 photographs, 2 scrapbooks, 13 audio cassettes and 7 audio reels.
- Name Access
- Siegel, Ida Lewis, 1885-1982
- Siegel, Isidore Hirsch
- Siegel, Leah Gittel (Labovitz) (Sadker)
- Siegel, Rohama Lee
- Siegel, David Isar
- Siegel, Sarah (Sontag)
- Siegel, Avrom Fichel
- Siegel, Rivka Hadassah (Gurau)
- Access Restriction
- Partially closed. Researchers must receive permission from the OJA director prior to accessing some of the records.
- Related Material
- 1979-1-3
- 1980-3-4
- MG2 O1l
- MG2 O1m
- National Council of Jewish Women fonds 38
- Arrangement
- Records had previously been placed in acid free boxes and file folders and labeled according to their contents.
- Creator
- Siegel, Ida Lewis, 1885-1982
- Accession Number
- 1988-2-13
- 2004-5-129
- 2004-5-163
- 2005-5-3
- Source
- Archival Descriptions
- Part Of
- United Jewish Welfare Fund fonds
- Level
- Fonds
- Fonds
- 67
- Material Format
- multiple media
- Date
- 1936-2010, predominant 1938-1976
- Physical Description
- 14.3 m of textual records
- 5593 photographs, 25 x 20 cm and smaller, and other media
- Admin History/Bio
- The Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of Toronto (FJPT) was incorporated in Ontario in March 1917 to coordinate the fundraising activities of Jewish charitable, philanthropic, and social service agencies in Toronto. In 1918, ten separate agencies were funded by the FJPT. By 1937, fourteen agencies were funded. The Great Depression of the 1930s and the development of several newer Jewish aid, education, and medical care organizations created both increased need for resources and growing competition for ever-more scarce dollars. Within a very few years, this funding crisis forced a major review of the organization.
- During 1936, a series of special meetings of leading individuals were held to examine the income and expenditures of all Toronto Jewish agencies and also to speculate about the need for a new Toronto Jewish "community chest" as the sole fund-raising organization for a federation of all Jewish agencies, including the FJPT. In 1938, the new United Jewish Welfare Fund was formally constituted. Added to the FJPT's previous list of Toronto client agencies in 1938 were: the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Hebrew National Association, the Jewish Immigrant Aid Association, the Mizrachi Society, the Toronto Free Loan Association, the Geverkshaften, and Old Folks Home, and the United Palestine Appeal, raising the total number of agencies to twenty-two.
- When the State of Israel was established in 1948, the UJWF's annual fundraising campaign was combined with the CJC's United Palestine appeal to form a new, combined campaign named the United Jewish Appeal (UJA). In 1967, the UJA name was legally changed to the United Jewish Appeal of Metropolitan Toronto.
- In mid-1976, the organization's public name was changed to the Toronto Jewish Congress. Although initially thought of as a merger between the UJWF and the CJC, the actual result was the expansion of the UJWF responsibilities to include local education and welfare services previously shared with the Canadian Jewish Congress, Central Region. The UJWF, however, remained the legal senior entity.
- In 1991, the public name was again changed to the Jewish Federation of Greater Toronto and, in 1999, to UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. By this date, over thirty beneficiary and affiliated agencies, forty-nine affiliated schools and five federation departments were fully or partly funded by the federation.
- In June 2010, the organization altered its legal structure, with the senior legal entity becoming the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto.
- Scope and Content
- Fonds consists of 25 series: Annual Meetings, Annual Reports, Board of Directors, Constitution Committee, Executive Committee, Officers Committee, Budget and Finance Committee, Administration Committee, Social Planning Committee, Committee on Capital Needs and Planning, Central Committee on Scholarships in Aid, Joint Committee of the BJE and UJWF Study on Jewish Education, Nominations Committee, Pension Fund Committee, Coordinating Committee, Special Ad Hoc and Temporary Committees, Annual Campaign, Client Agencies, Joint Committee of the CJC and the UJWF, Committee on Community Organization, Sub-Committee on Construction and Administration of Community Schools, Joint Committee on Fundraising, Personnel Committee, Community Leadership Development Council, and Israel at Fifty Community Celebration.
- Over 4500 photographs and a variety of other media are managed within Series 17, Campaign records.
- Notes
- For exact details about the contents of individual series and sub-series, please review their scope and contents notes.
- Name Access
- United Jewish Welfare Fund
- Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of Toronto
- United Jewish Appeal
- Toronto Jewish Congress
- Jewish Federation of Greater Toronto
- UJA Federation of Greater Toronto
- Subjects
- Charities
- Fund raising
- Access Restriction
- Partially closed. Researchers must receive permission from the OJA director prior to accessing some of the records.
- Related Material
- For records of the predecessor of the UJWF, see Fonds 66, the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of Toronto fonds.
- Further detailed documentation of the proposed merger between the UJWF and the CJC (creation of the TJC) may be found in Fonds 67, Sub-sub-series 5-5-1, Files 171 and 221.
- Further documentation on the United Jewish Welfare Fund may be found within Fonds 9, Series 7, records of the Jewish Immigrant Aid Society.
- For further detailed records of a key community leader's involvement with the UJWF see Accession 1982-8-8, the records of Samuel Godfrey, 1943-1972.
- Creator
- United Jewish Welfare Fund (1938-)
- Places
- Toronto (Ont.)
- Source
- Archival Descriptions