Name

Blanche Haber

Number

OH 189

Subject

Boardinghouses

Families

Immigrants--Canada

Occupations

Interview Date

18 Dec. 1987

Quantity

1

Interviewer

Kaylee Gollom Miller

Total Running Time

Side 1 - 31 minutes Side 2 - 31 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

Blanche Haber (née Heller) was born in a small town in Russia in 1893. She came to Toronto at age eight. Her father worked as a peddler. She married Isadore Haber in 1915. Three of her five children died from illness in their childhood. Before her marriage, Blanche worked as a seamstress. Isadore worked as a tailor, primarily for Eaton's. Like her mother, Blanche took boarders into her home at 112 Parliament Street once married.

Material Format

sound recording

Name Access

Haber, Blanche, 1893-1994

Haber, Isadore, 1887-1982

Manischewitz (family)

Geographic Access

Halifax (N.S.)

Parliament Street (Toronto, Ont.)

Original Format

Audio cassette

Copy Format

Audio cassette

Digital file

Transcript

G:\Description\Oral Histories\OH 189 Haber\OH 189 notes.pdf

Source

Oral Histories

In this clip, Blanche Haber describes taking boarders into her mother’s and her own home at 112 Parliament Street.

In this clip, Blanche Haber fondly remembers the warm relationship that developed between her family and the Manischewitz family. She explains that Joe Manischewitz boarded at her family’s home while his family built a matzah factory in Toronto.

Name

Sam Shaffer

Number

OH 307

Interview Date

18 Sep. 2007

Quantity

2 mini DVs, 2 reference DVDs, 2 archival DVDs

Interviewer

Sharon Gubbay Helfer

Notes

Part of Ontario Small Jewish Communities Project.

Use Restrictions

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

Biography

Sam Shaffer's grandfather, Abraham “Albert” Shaffer (1862–1935), first came to New Jersey from Austria with his wife, Rose (1868–1936), and their five children. The family then moved to Fort William in 1910, and Albert started the Western Scrap Iron and Metal Company as a horse-and-cart operation. Abraham's brother, Shmuel “Samuel” Shaffer, worked as a dentist in Fort William in the 1920s. Abraham later moved to Toronto while his son Joseph (1888–1951), stayed in Fort William to run the company. Albert's third son, Meyer, became a dentist like his uncle.

Joseph married Rebecca Bauchner (b. 1891) in March 1913, and they had three sons: Bernard (d. 2004), a lawyer and former president of the Ontario branch of the Canadian Bar Association; Cecil Shaffer (d. 1997), a dentist; and Samuel (b. 1925). Sam took over the family business from his father, expanding it into a large-scale demolition-and-recycling company in the 1950s and 1960s. He also established Coastal Steel Construction in 1968. At the time of the interview, he was working as a scrap metal broker under the name SJS Metal Traders Inc.

Sam Shaffer was a past president of B’nai Brith, as was his father, Joseph, before him. Both men were also active in the Masons. Sam Schaeffer married Nancy in 1957 (d. 2013), and they had two children, Martin and Jean, and two grandchildren. Sam passed away on 8 August 2011.

Material Format

moving images

Original Format

Mini DV

Copy Format

DVD

Source

Oral Histories

Name

Eleanor Jourard

Number

OH 310

Subject

Belleville

keeping kosher

Hadassah

synagogue

Jewish education

Antisemitism

Interview Date

18 Sep. 2007

Quantity

2 mini DVs; 2 reference copy DVDs; 2 archival DVDs

Interviewer

Sharon Gubbay Helfer

Notes

Part of Ontario Small Jewish Communities Project.

Use Restrictions

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

Biography

Eleanor Jourard's parents and grandparents came to Montreal from Russia and Poland. Eleanor attended McGill University but left after her third year. She met her husband, veteran broadcaster Lee Jourard (1929–2014), when he was a camp counsellor at Lake Temagami, north of North Bay. Eleanor and Lee were married in 1951 and moved to Belleville shortly after. A radio job at Quinte Broadcasting’s CJBQ station drew Lee to the Quinte region.

Eleanor went back to university to get her teaching degree and worked as a high school teacher from 1970 to 1990. She and her husband were affiliated with the Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville and were original Belleville Theatre Guild members who helped create an outstanding community theatre. They had four children—Lewis (d. 2013), Mike, Andrew, and Tigger—and three grandchildren.

Material Format

moving images

Original Format

Mini DV

Copy Format

DVD

Source

Oral Histories

Name

Norm Albert

Number

OH 311

Subject

Belleville

scrap business

clothing retail

Bar mitzvah

Israel trip

Immigration

Interview Date

18 Sep. 2007

Quantity

2 mini DVs; 2 archival DVDs; 2 reference DVDs

Interviewer

Sharon Gubbay Helfer

Total Running Time

1 hr. 29 mins.

Notes

Part of 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

Norm Albert (1928–2010), the son of Jacob and Lily Albert, was born in Toronto and raised with his brother, Stan, in Trenton and Belleville, Ontario. After attending Belleville Collegiate Institute, Norman joined his father in the Ladies' Retail Business, at the age of nineteen, by opening the Fashion Shoppe in Trenton. Norm's wife, Carole, hailed from Queens, New York. They were married in New York in 1956.

Norman opened another ladies' clothing store in Trenton, the Normandy Shop. A third store, Artistic Ladies Wear, was opened with his brother in Belleville. While toiling in the business of being a retail merchant, Norman and his father joined ranks with a childhood friend, Sidney, to form S & A Investments, a mortgage, loan, and real estate development company. He also ran Kingston Automatic Vending for more than twenty years with his brother-in-law. Norm was on the executive for the Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville for seventeen or eighteen years.

Norman enjoyed his retirement years with wife Carole in Florida and at the lake house in Brighton, Ontario. They had three children—Mark, David and Michele—and six grandchildren.

Material Format

moving images

Original Format

Mini DV

Copy Format

DVD

Source

Oral Histories

Name

Nicole Cohen

Number

OH 422

Subject

Canada--Emigration and immigration

Jews--South Africa

South Africa--Emigration and immigration

Interview Date

18 Nov. 2015

Interviewer

Lisa Newman

Total Running Time

OH 422 part 1: 22 min.

OH 422 part 2: 18 min.

OH 422 part 3: 4 min.

OH 422 part 4: 10 min.

Biography

Nicole “Nicky” Cohen moved to Canada from Johannesburg when she was five years old. Thereafter, her family went back several times. Her last trip back as a child was at age twelve. It is from these trips that she has her earliest memories of South Africa.

In 2008, Nicky returned to South Africa with her husband and children for a cousin’s wedding. While back, they visited the apartment where Nicky’s mother had grown up. As luck would have it, they made the acquaintance of the maid taking care of the apartment and who turned out to be the daughter of Nicky’s own nanny, Ruth. Ruth met with the family several times and the two sides stayed in touch for many years.

Ruth has since passed away, but Nicky hopes to return to South Africa with her husband and children in the near future.

Material Format

moving images

Language

English

Name Access

Cohen, Nicole

Geographic Access

Cape Town (South Africa)

Johannesburg (South Africa)

Soweto (South Africa)

Thornhill (Ont.)

Toronto (Ont.)

Original Format

Digital file

Copy Format

Digital file

Transcript

Part 1:

00:30 Nicole "Nicky" Cohen outlines her family history. Her great-grandparents came from Lithuania. Her paternal grandfather was born in Cape Town and her paternal grandmother was born in Johannesburg. Her maternal grandmother was born in Namibia. He maternal father and step-father were born in Germany and immigrated to South Africa in the 1930s.

01:40 Nicole discusses the birthplaces of her family. Her parents, Nicole, and her older brother were born in Johannesburg. Her younger brother was born in Toronto.

02:08 Nicole, aged five, immigrated to Canada with her parents on 19 March 1977.

02:23 Nicole recalls few memories from living in South Africa but shares some memories she gleaned from return trips and photographs.

03:37 Nicole recalls that her family would take four-to-six-week trips to South Africa every two years from 1977-1984.

04:52 Nicole's mother was a physiotherapist and her father was a travel agent.

05:30 Nicole explains why her parents decided to emigrate from South Africa.

06:58 Nicole discusses the maid (i.e., nanny), Ruth, from her childhood.

10:55 Nicole recalls other South African family friends they maintained when they moved to Toronto.

11:34 Nicole discusses living arrangements when her family came to Toronto. Her family settled in Thornhill.

13:15 Nicole discusses her education.

14:00 Nicole discusses the challenges of adjusting to a Toronto winter.

15:42 Nicole fondly recalls return visits to South Africa with her family.

16:45 Nicole describes attending a cousin's wedding to South Africa in 2008, twenty-four years after her last visit. She discusses the trip.

21:06 Nicole discusses the high crime rate in Johannesburg. She cites some specific examples.

Part 2:

00:00 Nicole continues to discuss the high rate of crime in Johannesburg. She discusses driving through shanty towns in Cape Town and Soweto.

02:05 Nicole recalls visiting the apartment where her grandmother had lived. She discusses some of the security enforced by gates and guards. She shares an anecdote involving her family's maid, Ruth. She describes how she reconnected with Ruth and her daughter while visiting her grandmother's former apartment.

13:00 Nicole expresses a desire to return to South Africa.

13:55 Nicole discusses relatives who remain in South Africa. She notes her father's first cousin and daughter who live in Johannesburg. She discusses where other relatives are currently living.

Part 3:

00:00 Nicole discusses the close relationship between her family and their maid, Ruth. She describes how her family supported Ruth and her family.

01:20 Nicole explains how her parents and grandmother remained in contact with Ruth even after her grandmother immigrated to Canada. She recalls an anecdote involving her family arranging for Ruth to visit Toronto when she was temporarily working with a South African family in New York in the late 1980s.

02:54 Nicole discusses the difficulty her father encouraged when he initially attempted to immigrate to Canada in 1976. She cites a fictitious letter of employment for her father that enabled her family to immigrate. The letter is on file in the archives.

Part 4:

00:00 Nicole describes photographs. Some of the photographs were taken during former and recent trips to South Africa. Some photographs include images from shanty towns, Soweto, Sun City, relatives, Nicole's grandmother's apartment, etc.

Source

Oral Histories

A Big Part of my Life