Accession Number
1983-7-2
Source
Archival Accessions
Accession Number
1983-7-2
Material Format
textual record
Physical Description
6 cm of textual records
Date
1899-1982
Scope and Content
Accession consists of material documenting the life and career of Rabbi Ernest Klein. Records include personal as well as professional correspondence, certificates, newspaper clippings and book reviews, a marriage register, bar mitzvah invitations, and Klein's birth certificate.
Administrative History
Ernest Klein (1899-1983) was born in Szatmar, Hungary on 26 July 1899. He studied at the University of Vienna and served as a rabbi in several countries including Czechoslovakia, Romania, and France. The Second World War brought great hardship for Klein, who survived Auschwitz and Dachau (his wife and son were killed in Czechoslovakia just before the war). After the War, Klein came to Canada, where he became rabbi of Congregation Beth Yitshak in Toronto. A polyglot and a scholar, Klein wrote three etymological dictionaries, the most famous of which was his Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (1966-67). For his work, he received honourary degrees from McMaster University and the University of Guelph in 1977 and was awarded the Order of Canada in 1978. He passed away on 4 February 1983.
Use Conditions
Partially closed. Researchers must receive permission from the OJA Director prior to accessing some of the records.
Descriptive Notes
USE CONDITION NOTE: Accession contains medical records that are closed to researchers until January 2034.
MG_RG
MG 6 D
Subjects
Birth certificates
Clippings (Books, newspapers, etc.)
Invitation cards
Marriage records
Rabbis
Name Access
Klein, Ernest, 1899-1983
Source
Archival Accessions
Accession Number
2017-12-2
Source
Archival Accessions
Accession Number
2017-12-2
Material Format
textual record
graphic material
Physical Description
15 cm of textual records
22 photographs : col. (12 negatives) ; 9 x 9 cm and 35 mm
3 signs
Date
1938-1982
Scope and Content
Accession consists of records belonging to Rabbi Abraham A. Price. The bulk of the records are marriage registers from 1938 to 1982. There are also some loose marriage certificates spanning 1939 to 1946, Price's registration certificate as a marriage officiant from 1938, a letter in Yiddish, and his Isaac Kook Award of Merit certificate, as well as some photographs and corresponding negatives of a family vacation. Also included are three kashruth signs. One was issued by the Kashruth Council of the Canadian Jewish Congress (likely in the 1950s); the other two are hand-painted and were issued by Rabbi Price (likely in the 1940s). They are in both Yiddish and English and read: "Certificate of Kashruth. All meat and meat products of this butcher shop is strictly Kosher under the supervision of Rabbi Abraham A. Price."
Custodial History
The donor is the son-in-law of Rabbi Price.
Administrative History
Rabbi Abraham A. Price (1900–1994) was a prominent rabbi and Talmudic scholar in Toronto. He was born on 10 December 1900 in Stopnitz, Poland, to Rabbi Joseph and Basia Price. He married Sarah Wine and had two children: a son, Moshe Leib, who predeceased him, and a daughter, Leah (Lola) Zuchowsky. He also had a brother, Lazar.
Price lived in Poland until 1923, when he moved to Berlin and became a banker. He left Berlin for Paris in 1931 and lived there for six years, before fleeing to the United States in 1937. Rabbi Price originally went to New York City but spent only ten days there before moving to Toronto.
Rabbi Price studied with world-famous scholars Rabbis Abraham Borenstein and Sillman, by whom he was ordained at the Rabbinical Seminary Sochatzow (Sochatov), Poland, in 1919. He was hired in 1937 by Moishe Oelbaum, Moishe Sigal, and W. J. Silverberg to head Yeshivah Torath Chaim and to act as the official rabbi of Chevra Shas Congregation. Price remained dean of the yeshivah until at least 1985. He published ten volumes of highly-acclaimed rabbinical studies, including three volumes of Mishnath Avraham with commentaries of the Book of the Pious "Sefer Chasidim," which were awarded the Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook Award of Merit in 1965. It was the first time this prize was given to an author outside Israel.
Price was one of Toronto's most influential rabbinic authorities. He worked tirelessly to help European yeshivah students during and after the Second World War. In 1942, he orchestrated the release of over fifty German-Jewish men from an internment camp in Quebec and brought them to study at the yeshivah. In 1948, he again intervened to sponsor fifty-five young yeshivah boys from Prague. He brought these boys to study at Torath Chaim as well.
Rabbi Price died on Thursday, 31 March 1994, in Toronto.
Descriptive Notes
Language: Records are in Yiddish and English.
Subjects
Marriage records
Rabbis
Name Access
Price, Abraham A., 1900-1994
Source
Archival Accessions
Accession Number
2018-11-6
Source
Archival Accessions
Accession Number
2018-11-6
Material Format
textual record
graphic material
Physical Description
4 folders
Date
1949-2015, predominant 1949-1976
Scope and Content
Accession consists of material documenting Glen Eker and his family. Included are: birth certificates and an expired passport for Dorothy Horwitz, certificates of marriage (including a ketubah) for Dorothy Eker and Paul Eker, a true copy of a change of name order for Isadore Maxwell Eker/Paul Maxwell Eker, and a Valentine's Day-themed photograph of Glen and Deborah "Debbie" Eker taken on 9 February 2015.
Administrative History
Glen Eker was born in Toronto, Ontario to Paul Eker and Dorothy Horwitz. He grew up in the Forest Hill neighbourhood of Toronto before moving with his family to Hamilton. He received two master’s degrees (one in sociology, the other in political science) from McMaster University and a third master’s degree (in library science) from the University of Toronto.
Glen's wife, Deborah Pekilis, was born in Montreal and lived there until her parents moved to Toronto. She was the librarian for the Jewish Genealogical Society and sat on the Hamilton Historical Board. She is currently a writer.
Glen has worked as a research assistant and a teaching assistant at McMaster and has taught at Ryerson University and Mohawk College. At present, he works as an estate and genealogy researcher.
Glen has published a book on Karl Marx, five indexes of Jews in Canada, and one index of Amish and Mennonites in Canada. His genealogy articles have appeared in various magazines and his short stories and poems have appeared in print as well.
Glen has worked on his family genealogy for a number of years. His paternal family line derives from Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Poland while his maternal line derives from Byelorussia and Romania. He is descended from the Horwitz and Strachman families on the latter.
Subjects
Birth certificates
Families
Marriage records
Name Access
Eker (family)
Eker, Glen
Places
Hamilton (Ont.)
Toronto (Ont.)
Source
Archival Accessions