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Mike Rabovsky - 13 Jun. 2007
- Name
- Mike Rabovsky
- Material Format
- moving images
- Interview Date
- 13 Jun. 2007
- Source
- Oral Histories
- Name
- Mike Rabovsky
- Number
- OH 296
- Subject
- Owen Sound
- Family history
- Cadesky family
- Beth Ezekiel
- furniture business
- World War, 1939-1945
- Rabbi Kirschenbaum
- Bar mitzvah
- Mr. Amsterdam
- Antisemitism
- Sauble Beach
- Cemeteries
- Interview Date
- 13 Jun. 2007
- Quantity
- 2 mini DV's, 1 archival DVD and 1 reference DVD
- Interviewer
- Sharon Gubbay Helfer
- Notes
- Ontario Small Jewish Communities Project
- Availability of other formats: Also available as an M4V Video File
- Use Restrictions
- Copyright is held by the Ontario Jewish Archives. Please contact the archives to obtain permission prior to use.
- Biography
- Mike Rabovsky married Miriam Levinson, and their story is best told through this historical narrative:
- Owen Sound's Beth Ezekiel Synagogue, a designated building under Ontario’s Heritage Act, remains the last example of the early small town synagogue that was once so common across Canada. The most compelling window in the synagogue is dedicated to the Rabovsky and Levison's families and tells the story of two immigrant families and the establishment of a Jewish community in Owen Sound.
- The jagged shards of glass depict the Levison family's harrowing experience of Kristallnacht (night of broken glass), prelude to the Holocaust. Desperate to escape Germany, the family was just one boat ticket away from freedom. Moments before they were to leave, an elderly couple offered their tickets to the Levisons, effectively sealing their own fate as victims of the Final Solution, while giving the young family a chance to escape the coming storm. Waiting out the war in China, the family eventually made it to Canada where Manfred Levison immediately began to look for work as a Rabbi. At the same time, Isaac Ezekiel Cadesky, a refugee of the Russian pogroms and the man for whom our Synagogue is named, was looking for a Rabbi to serve Owen Sound's bourgeoning Jewish community. Manfred Levison took the job, and in time his daughter Miriam married Isaac's grandson Mike.
- Miriam met Myer (Mike) Rabovsky. He was 29 and she was 19. Theirs was a happy marriage, lasting more than fifty years. Miriam and Mike had one daughter, Goldie (m. Bruce Ronald) and two grandchildren.
- Material Format
- moving images
- Original Format
- Mini DV
- Copy Format
- DVD
- Source
- Oral Histories