Letters. We get letters. We get lots and lots of letters. 

Letters. We get letters. We get lots and lots of letters. 

By Susan Mogil

Of course, nowadays the Archives Committee typically receives requests by email and by voicemail to the Temple office.

We were contacted by a student who was participating in the 2024 Vimy Pilgrimage, a federally sponsored program for high school students who visit Canadian war memorials and the graves of Canadian war veterans in Europe. The student had chosen to honour a Jewish soldier, Lt. Myer Tutzer Cohen, who died in 1917 at the battle of Passchendaele. We provided information about Lt. Cohen who was a Holy Blossom member and whose grandfather in 1892 was elected President of the synagogue. The student corresponded with us before and after the pilgrimage and sent us a biography and appreciation of Lt. Cohen which they wrote, a link to a blog published by the students while they were in Europe, photographs from the trip and a rubbing from Lt. Cohen’s headstone. 

We’ve had questions about the wedding dates of congregants, even ones very long ago. The archives room has the original registry books since 1896. We see the names, ages, addresses and occupations of the bride and groom, the date of the marriage, the name of the officiating rabbi and the signatures of all three.

In 2023 a question came to the archives from a Toronto resident who lives next door to our Pape Avenue cemetery, the first Jewish cemetery in Toronto. This man had found a headstone when excavating in his garden and he called Holy Blossom about it. Readers will recall the interesting article that Judy Winberg wrote in September 2023 describing how this headstone was returned and replaced near its original site. Our research uncovered an enormous schematic plan of the cemetery showing the names of members buried in many of the graves, almost all more than 100 years old.

On occasion, new olim to Israel must prove that they are Jewish. We have had inquiries about the dates of their bar or bat mitzvahs and other ways to prove Jewish bona fides. Similarly, questions are asked about the bar and bat mitzvah dates of former members of the congregation, some many decades ago.

Rev. Nathan Robinson was a member and the first long-term employee of Holy Blossom Temple serving the congregation from 1878 to 1899. He acted as shochet, mohel, chazan, teacher and Torah reader. One of the Robinson descendants now lives in Winnipeg and was doing a family history. We were able to send him images from our files and point to Rev. & Mrs. Robinsons’ burial plots in our Pape Avenue cemetery. 

These are just some of the questions we have answered.  If you have an inquiry we can help you with, please contact us at [email protected].