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Rabbi Samuel Sachs fonds
- Part Of
- Rabbi Samuel Sachs fonds
- Level
- Fonds
- Fonds
- 106
- Material Format
- textual record
- Date
- 1914-1979
- Physical Description
- 63 cm of textual records
- Admin History/Bio
- Rabbi Samuel Sachs (1894-1989) was the spiritual leader of Goel Tzedec Synagogue from 1927 to 1946, when the congregation was housed on University Ave.
- Rabbi Sachs was born on 1 September 1894 in Vilnius, Lithuania. He was the son of Yehuda Sachs and Reiza Malka Sachs. He had two siblings: sisters Khaya Sachs and Rebecca Sachs.
- As a child he attended Radin, one of the classical yeshivas in Lithuania. Coming to the United States, he studied at the Isaac Eichanan Yeshiva and the Jewish Theological Seminary. He received his smicha (rabbinical ordination) in 1916 and in the ensuing ten years served in Brooklyn, Detroit, and Portland, Oregon.
- He married Florence "Fayge" Farber (1902-1976) on 24 Oct. 1920 in Detroit, Michigan. Together, they had four children: Judah (Jerry) Raphael Walpert, David Sachs; Mendel Sachs and Elliott Sachs.
- In 1927, Sachs moved to Toronto to become the spiritual leader of Goel Tzedec Synagogue.
- Notably, Sachs led the deputations to Mayor William Stewart to stop the flaunting of an inflammatory swastika banner during the Christie Pits riot of 1933. The following year, when the Canadian Jewish Congress was reorganized, Sachs joined the public relations committee, which he chaired for a time. He was also active on the Jewish education committee, the German boycott committee and the arbitration committee.
- Later, in the war years, he was chairman of the Intra-Jewish Committee — a body which undertook to enforce that Jewish merchants and dealers complied with the wartime restrictions on various supplies and provisions.
- He acted as prison chaplain in the 1930s and honorary chaplain to the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War.
- He left Toronto in 1946 because of an illness that was removing his voice leaving him unable to perform most of his rabbinical tasks. In California he partially regained this function and carried on certain rabbinical and teaching tasks. He died on 25 April 1989 in Santa Monica at the age of 94.
- Scope and Content
- Fonds consists of records created by Rabbi Samuel Sachs. Included are his sermons and related notes on a number of biblical themes, general writings, prayers, speeches, and general correspondence.
- Name Access
- Sachs, Samuel, 1894-1989
- Subjects
- Rabbis
- Source
- Archival Descriptions