Mostrando 81 resultados

Oral History interview with Rita Sitwell. Her family is from Vilna Poland. Her grandmother was a baker and would make all the traditional baked goods for the holidays. Rita talks about growing up in Vilna under communism and antisemitism in the USSR. They move to Israel in 1970, when Rita was 25. She talks about finding freedom in Israel and later Canada. Her family moved to Montreal. Rita worked as a hairdresser, she tried to work with Jewish people so she could switch to Yiddish when she didn’t know the English words. Her mother loved Montreal because it was better for her health than Israel. They all moved to Vancouver in 1974. Her and John got married in 2000 and she moved to Victoria with him.

Oral history interview with Isaac Messinger. He was born in Poland in 1929. During the war he was moved to Siberia, Russia. Later in the war he became a chauffeur for a General in the Polish Army, he was 16 or 17 at the time. After the war he ended up in Germany and was a pickpocketing. He got sent to an American school in Germany that was teaching children that were going to immigrate to North America, but he couldn’t sit still in class, so they gave him a job in the garage where he learnt English with the Americans that worked there. He came to Canada at age 18 or 19. He got a job as a tin smith, then he got a job as a carnie and made his way to Vancouver where he worked at the PNE. He eventually opened a steak Restaurant and ran it for a while. He talks about Casinos and Las Vegas. He talks about how he met his wife and their life together.

Oral history interview with Elizabeth Wolak, interviewed by Jennifer Yuhasz. Elizabeth reflects on her childhood in Poland, while discussing her family’s history, including her experience living through WWII. She details her education both ordinary and musical, from which she graduated with honours and after which she was recommended to assist a conductor. Elizabeth started her own professional career conducting in 1952. When it was time for her and her mother to immigrate, they moved to Sydney, Australia, where they had some relatives. It was here that Elizabeth became truly interested in Jewish music. She and her husband, who she’d known in Poland, married in Australia before moving to Vancouver in 1963, where he had eventually settled after the war. Once in Vancouver, she ran a large choir with the Jewish Community Centre. She also speaks about her passion for music and how it has intertwined with her involvement in both Jewish and choral communities in Vancouver, since her immigration. Finally, she speaks about her family.

Oral history interview with Marvin Weintraub who was born in Poland in 1924; done in preparation of Betty Nitkin writing an article for the Scribe on the beginnings of the Jewish Studies Program at UBC.

Oral history interview with Dr. Richard Rosenberg. He has been an active member of Peretz Centre, including President and teaching. Richard is a board member of the BC Civil Liberties Association and has his doctorate in Physics and Engineering.

Oral history interview with Betty Nitkin, who was born in Montreal, 1941. He parents studied and met at the University of Lwow. Working in between Montreal and England during the 1960's but due to a combination of Montreal's winters and the political situation in Quebec convinced the family to move to Vancouver in 1968. Mrs. Nitkin was involved in the National Council of Jewish Woman for many years chairing the Committee for Soviet Jewry during the 1970's. Mrs. Nitkin volunteered the Vancouver Jewish Centre helping settle Bosnian refugee families during the 1990's.

Oral history interview with Bertha Uniden who was born in Poland. She has worked for B’nai B’rith

Oral history interview with Estelle McClure, who was born in Canada in 1910. Her mother was born in Poland and her father was born in Romania in the 1870's. The family first moved to England and than later emigrated to Canada and than grew up in California.

Number: CA JMABC A.1971.001-20.05-31
Name: Marvin Weintraub
Interviewer: Charna Plottel
Date: November 22nd, 2005
Place: [Vancouver, BC]
Project: The Jewish Historical Society of British Columbia Oral History Project

Summary:
Tape 1, Side 1:
00:00: Buzzing sounds.
00:03 Charna Plottel begins to speak and ask Marvin Weintraub his English and Hebrew names.
00:46: Weintraub names his only brother Jerry, and his four nieces and nephews. Both sides of Weintraub’s family came from Rodam, Poland.
2:27: Weintraub recalls how he and his brother watched their great grandmother’s funeral procession from their balcony.
3:10: Weintraub speaks of his grandfather who went to Rabbinical school but had to leave partway through in order to support his large number of brothers and sisters after the death of their father. Weintraub’s maternal grandfather was a Hasid while his wife, Reba ran her family’s wrought iron manufacturing business.
7:46: Plottel inquires about Weintraub’s parents. His father owned a tanning factory in Rodam and was an excellent Torah reader.
11:25: Weintraub recalls how his father was worried about the growing anti-Semitism in Poland and decided to begin sending all of his siblings and mother to Canada and the United States in 1920. He took his wife and children, the last to leave, in 1930 to Toronto.
12:29: Weintraub recounts how his father told him that on the day of Weintraub’s birth, the whole town danced and sang, but he later learned that he had been born on Simchat Torah. Weintraub’s mother was four years older than her husband. She had studied nursing and midwifery in Warsaw. He recalls that his mother never became accustomed to living in Canada. She had grown up in a higher social status than she had in Canada and it was a difficult adjustment. He complains about his mother’s cooking.
16:25: Before they moved to Canada, Weintraub’s father had sold his tanning factory but the Bank of Canada made bad investments with his money and they lost a great deal of it. Several years later, his father opened a grocery store and the whole family worked in it.
17:56: Weintraub recounts his father’s telling of how he and Weintraub’s mother met at a dinner party.
18:26: Weintraub gives detail of his parents’ parenting style. They had influence on his choice of wife and lifestyle.
20:16: Weinraub recalls the Rodamer Mutual Benefit Society, a group of immigrants who had all originated in Rodam, Poland and come to Canada. There were other similar groups from other places in Eastern Europe. This was called a landsmanschaften. He also speaks of a small, old Orthodox synagogue in Toronto’s university district that still existed at the time of the interview.
24:12: Plottel praises Weintraub for being so involved at Beth Israel synagogue.
24:38: Weintraub recalls his education beginning with elementary as well as recounting his memories at Harbord Collegiate. He also went to religious school which his father supplemented by also teaching him and his brother about Judaism.
28:33: End of Tape 1, Side 1.
Tape 1, Side 2:
00:00: Plottel asks Weintraub about the languages he speaks. Weintraub spoke English, Yiddish and some French. He also mentions how he and his brother had a Black piano teacher who entered them in piano competitions.
1:42: Plottel asks Weintraub to recount some memories from his school years. He speaks again of Harbord Collegiate and his love the learning Latin and Greek. He eventually switched and enrolled in biology courses. He speaks of a Mr. Smith, who was the teacher who encouraged him to pursue a PhD in biology. Weintraub and Smith continued their friendship until Smith’s death.
5:25: Plottel asks Weintraub about his teenage years. Weintraub recounts how he worked in his father’s grocery and in a tobacco wholesale company. Weintraub and his brother decided to sell sandwiches and other refreshments at a young men’s club which they did not realize until much later was brothel.
9:05: End of Tape 1, Side 2 and end of interview.