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Friday, September 14, 1984 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

A Thriving Community

BY ELAINE AND ROBERT ROSENTHAL
Special to The Jewish News

Canadians look, dress and talk
like Americans. Traveling to Canada
involves no passport or visa or jet lag.
But make no mistake, Canada is a
foreign country and Toronto, for a
Jewish tourist, is like no other foreign
city.
Your first impression of Toronto
will be of a modern, booming city with
glass skyscrapers, luxury hotels, su-
perb public transportation, unusual
shopping malls and magnificent
museums.
Over 75 cultures and nationalities
are repressed in the city — English,
French, German, Hungarian, Greek,
Portuguese, Polish, West Indian and
Chinese, to name a few. Separate
ethnic enclaves maintain their iden-
tity by their language, restaurants,
stores, schools and churches.
One of the most exciting enclaves
is the Jewish section on Bathurst
Street, or the Bathurst Corridor as the
Canadians refer to it.
The Jewish section, like those in
most large North American cities, was
once located in the downtown area,
around Spadina Avenue from Queen
Street up to College Street. Here,
Jewish immigrants found cheap hous-
ing close to the garment factories
where they worked and near their
"landsmanshaften" shuls, meeting
halls, restaurants and Yiddish theat-
ers.
The Jewish Community Center
and other major Jewish organizations
had their headquarters in this area.
The famous Kensington Market, to the
west of Spadina between Dundas and
College Streets, was once a fabulous
Jewish marketplace. Still colorful, it's
now mostly occupied by Chinese, Por-
tuguese, West Indian, Greek and Ita-
lian fruit and butcher markets.
The Holly Blossom Temple, To-
ronto's oldest, founded in 1856 by
Jewish immigrants from England 'and
the United States, was originally Or-
thodox. A Reform temple since 1920, it
was the first to move north from
downtown in 1938.
In 1954, Beth Tzedec, the largest
Conservative congregation in North
America, built an impressive syna-
gogue on Bathurst Street. The exodus
of Orthodox congregations followed
the move up Bathurst.
But the parallel development
with the United States, of the aban-
donment of the downtown, did not fol-
low. Unlike the center of most Ameri-

The Rosenthals, Elaine, a retired
librarian, and Robert, a retired attorney,
spend time traveling and writing about
their travels from their Washington, D.C.
base.

can cities, Toronto is safe and livable.
Many Jews remained in the old
section, and many more have moved
back downtown into newly built town-
houses and apartments.
Thus, a sizable Jewish presence
remains downtown, including at least
five active synagogues and several
meeting places, stores and restau-
rants.
Two downtown synagogues are
worth visiting. Anshe Minsk, the
"Minsker Shul," at 10 St. Andrews
Street is located in the heart of the
Kensington Market area. It holds mi-
nyans Sundays through Fridays and
on Shabbat. The Kiever Congregation,
at 25 Belle, also of World War I vin-
tage, has been faithfully restored.
The main Jewish section in To-
ronto, however, is the Bathurst Cor-
ridor, a 30-minute cab ride from down-

Jewish highlights in Toronto include the Anshe Minsk synagogue (top photograph), Stroli's kosher market in the Bathurst corridor,
and a Jewish shopping mall that features kosher fast food at Maven's.

town and a slightly longer ride by trol-
ley car, subway or bus. But the trip up
Bathurst to Eglinton is worth the ef-
fort.
Here, on an eight mile corridor,
live 75 percent — 90,000 — of Toron-
to's 125,000 Jews. The largest Jewish
community in Canada.
Ben Kayfetz, Director of Commu-
nity Relations for the Toronto Jewish
Congress, who was born and raised in
the old downtown Jewish section,
pin-points the birth of the Bathurst
Corridor to 1950.
"Around that time, the boys came
back from World War II and found the
section where they were brought up
had become Chinese," he said. "Even
the street signs were in Chinese.
"Although the Jews got along
with the Chinese, the section was no
longer Jewish. They wanted homes
with lawns and space for their children

to play in. They settled on Bathurst,
above Eglinton, which was then
mostly farmland."

Before 1920, the number of Jews
in Toronto was never large. The great
influx of Jews into Canada came after
1920, when the United Sates closed
immigration from Eastern Europe. In
1930, the influx stopped and few Jews
migrated to Canada.
According to Kayfetz, the com-
munity suspected, but was not certain,
why Jewish immigration suddenly
stopped. Only after publication in
1983 of the book None Is too Many;
Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933-
1948 by Irving Abella and Harold
Troper was the community certain.
The book's title comes from a re-
mark made by a senior Canadian gov-
erment official during World War. II.
When asked how many Jews Canada

would allow-to enter, he replied, "None
is too many."

But in the 1950s Canada again
opened its ports, admitting 60,000
Holocaust survivors. This influx dou-
bled the size of Toronto's Jewish popu-
lation. Even today, one or two out of
every five Jews in Toronto have num-
bers tattooed on their arms.
When the Soviet Union invaded
Hungary in 1956, there was another
wave of immigration and Hungarian
Jews are now visible and important to
the community. When France aban-
doned its colonies in North Africa in
1958, many Jews cane to Toronto from
Morocco and Tunisia.
Then came thousands of young
Americans who left the United States
to escape the Vietnam War draft. In
recent years, large numbers of Jews
have come to Toronto from Montreal