Part Of
Solomon Edell fonds
Level
Fonds
ID
Fonds 4
Source
Archival Descriptions
Part Of
Solomon Edell fonds
Level
Fonds
Fonds
4
Material Format
multiple media
Date
[ca. 1900]-2010
Physical Description
3.1 metres of textual records and other material
Admin History/Bio
Sol Edell (1919-2000) was a prominant member of the Toronto Jewish community who initially pursued a career as a pharmacist and was later founder and president of the property development company, Elmdale Investments. He held positions as board member or chair in a wide variety of religious, educational and social service organizations and institutions both in Canada and Israel. In Toronto, these included: Clanton Park Synagogue, Adas Israel Synagogue, Jones Avenue Cemetery, Canadian Jewish Congress and the Jewish Federation of Greater Toronto (formerly Toronto Jewish Congress, and now the United Jewish Appeal Federation of Greater Toronto).
Edell was born in Toronto on 5 March 1919, the son of Pesach and Molly Edell. He attended Harbord Collegiate and graduated from the Toronto College of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, in 1943 while on leave of absence from the army. He was enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces during the Second World War and served in the signal corps.
After he completed his army service, he opened Edell’s Drug Store at 1978 Queen Street in Etobicoke in 1948, the first shomer Shabbat drug store in the city. He operated a second store at 494 Spadina Avenue in the late 1940s. In 1955 the Queen Street location was expropriated by the City of Toronto. Subsequently, Edell founded Elmdale Investments, the company which built and managed the Elmhurst Plaza in Etobicoke. He reopened the drug store, which was renamed Elmhurst Drugs in the plaza. He also invested in two retail textile stores, Deltex Drapery and Dodd’s Drapery which had been founded by group of businessmen including his cousin Israel Edell.
In 1952 he married Dolly Weinstock, the daughter of Moishe and Sylvia Weinstock. They lived in the newly developed suburb of North York with their four children: Ethel, Simcha, Malka and Joseph. After 10 years of marriage, Dolly died and in 1966, he married Celia Rogen Hoffman.
Sol Edell was a founding member and first president of the Clanton Park Congregation. He was actively involved in the construction of the synagogue and its development. He continued to be affiliated with Shomrai Shabbos where his grandfather Rabbi Yosef Weinreb had been the rabbi. He was also involved with Adas Israel, the synagogue in Hamilton where his wife Celia had been an active member.
He was chair of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Ontario Region -- Toronto Jewish Congress Archives Committee, which subsequently became the Ontario Jewish Archives. During his tenure, the archives was responsible for the reconstruction of the Kiever Synagogue which had been built in the early 1900s but had fallen into a state of disrepair by the 1960s.
Sol Edell was also involved in a number of Zionist organizations. He was the founding chair of the Aliyah Support Committee of the Jewish Federation of Greater Toronto, whose mandate was to assist Torontonians who had moved to Israel and ease their transition into Israeli society. He was also an active member of the Mizrachi organization and its affiliated institutions. Another one of Sol Edell’s interests was ensuring the preservation of local cemeteries. He was president of the Jones Avenue Cemetery and on the board of Pardes Shalom and the Bathurst Lawn Cemetery, Clanton Park section.
Scope and Content
Fonds consists of records documenting Sol Edell's business activities, community involvement and personal life. Included is correspondence, meeting minutes, photographs, financial records, legal records, publications, audio-visual material, invitations, newspaper clippings, artifacts, lists, reports, speeches, and architectural drawings.
The fonds is organized into the following eleven series: Personal; Edell's Drug Store and Elmhurst Pharmacy; Elmdale Investments; Deltex Drapery and Dodd's Drapery; Adas Israel Synagogue; Clanton Park Synagogue; Shomrai Shabbos; Aliyah; Cemetery and funeral home; Historical materials; and, Activities and organizations.
Notes
Physical description note: includes 739 photographs, 232 architectural drawings, 11 audio cassettes, 9 audio reels, 13 film reels, 7 videocassettes, 4 slides, 1 plaque, 4 badges, and 1 key.
Name Access
Edell Solomon, 1919-2000
Clanton Park Synagogue (Toronto, Ont.)
Edell, Dolly
Edell, Celia
Edell's Drug Store
Elmhurst Pharmacy
Jones Avenue Cemetery
Canadian Jewish Congress/ Toronto Jewish Congress Archives
Aliyah Support Committee
Subjects
Business
Pharmacists
Access Restriction
Partially closed. Researchers must receive permission from the OJA director prior to accessing some of the records.
Physical Condition
The bulk of the architectural drawings are currently being stored rolled up. They should be flattened and encapsulated in melinex.
Film and sound reels should be digitized.
Related Material
See fonds #5 for material related to Paul Edell.
See accession #2012-10/9 for material related to the Edell family.
Creator
Edell, Solomon, 1919-2000
Accession Number
2002-12-2
2008-8-29
2011-5-4
2012-10-9
Source
Archival Descriptions
Part Of
Ida Lewis Siegel fonds
Level
Fonds
ID
Fonds 15
Source
Archival Descriptions
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
ID
Fonds 67
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