Name

Rabbi Elimelech Ittamar

Number

OH 141

Subject

Education

Immigrants--Canada

Rabbis

Synagogues

Zionists

Interview Date

11 May 1976

Quantity

1

Interviewer

Doris Newman

Total Running Time

Side 1: 46 minutes Side 2: 19 minutes

Conservation

Copied August 2003

Use Restrictions

Copyright is held by the Ontario Jewish Archives. Please contact the archives to obtain permission prior to use.

Biography

Rabbi Ittamar was born in Poland. He came to Toronto in 1923. He attended Landsdowne and Ryerson Public Schools in Toronto for one year and then continued his education at a theological seminary in New York, which later became Yeshiva University. Throughout his life, Rabbi Ittamar was an ardent Zionist. From 1930 until June 1932, Rabbi Ittamar served as rabbi of Beth Jacob and Adas Yisroel Synagogues in Hamilton. He then worked as principal of the Seattle Talmud Torah and attended graduate school at the University of Washington for three and a half years. He served for twenty years in Detroit as rabbi and president of Yeshiva. He made aliyah in 5715 (1955), when he was invited by Chief Rabbi Herzog to become secretary of the chief rabbinate. He was married (nee Unger) in 1936 and had two children, Tamar and Yehoshua.

Material Format

sound recording

Name Access

Ittamar, Elimelech

Geographic Access

Toronto

Hamilton

Detroit

Original Format

Audio cassette

Copy Format

Audio cassette

Digital file

Transcript

G:\Description\Oral Histories\OH 141, Rabbi Elmelech Ittamar\OH 141 notes.pdf

Source

Oral Histories

In this clip, Rabbi Ittamar shares some of his early memories as a boy in Toronto.

While attending Yeshiva in New York, Rabbi Ittamar headed the debating team. In this clip he describes his first English-speaking public presentation while representing the debating team in 1930 at the Jewish People’s Institute in Chicago.