Roback was the second of Polish immigrants Fanny and Moses Roback’s nine children. Born in Montreal, she spent her childhood in Beauport, Quebec, where her parents ran a general store. The observant Jewish family spoke Yiddish at home, and French or English otherwise. Roback was able to switch back and forth freely between languages, a skill that proved useful in her work with labour organizations. When she was 14, the family returned to Montreal, and she began working in the city’s factories two years later. It was at this point that she became acutely aware of the inequality between Montreal’s affluent English-speaking families and the mostly French and Jewish working class.

Roback spent time in Berlin and the USSR before returning to Montreal in 1932, and finding work as a youth group director at the Young Women’s Hebrew Association, where her mentor was Saidye Bronfman (Sam Bronfman’s wife). In 1935, she managed the Modern Bookshop on Bleury Street, the first Marxist bookstore in Quebec, which became a gathering place for local radicals. That same year, she coordinated Fred Rose‘s bid for election; eight years later, he became the first communist elected to the House of Commons.

Roback was a fixture on the streets, protesting for a variety of interrelated movements. In 1936, she was recruited by legendary women’s suffrage leader, Thérèse Casgrain, to support her work in obtaining the vote for women in Quebec as a founder in La Voix des Femmes. In 1937, Roback was a leader – along with organizers such as Rose Pesotta and Bernard Shane – in orchestrating 5,000 women walking off the job from the garment industry factories of Montreal for three weeks to improve work conditions; this led to the creation of the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU), Local 262. During the war years, she began working for the Radio Corporation of America (RCA Victor) and became an organizer for the United Electrical Workers, where she was able to acquire the first union contract for 4,000 workers. In her later years, she left the Communist Party, but continued to organize for causes including abortion rights, anti-racism, housing access, education, pay equity, South African apartheid and the Vietnam War. Her commitment to social justice and human rights inspired her work with numerous organizations, including anti-nuclear and anti-war groups, and Québec Aid to the Partially Sighted.

Roback’s dramatic life was the subject of filmmaker Sophie Bissonnette’s 1991 documentary, on Léa Roback: Des Lumières dans la grande Noirceur (A Vision in the Darkness) with Productions Contre-Jour, and her interviews with Madeleine Parent were published by Nicole Lacelle in 1988, by Éditions du remue-ménage.

There is a street bearing Roback’s name not far from the site of the original Radio Corporation of America plant in St-Henri, Montreal.

Special thanks to the Jewish Public Library Archives.

Learn More: 
http://www.fondationlearoback.org/bioen.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cSlMHrWPzQ

Hart was born in Bedford, Quebec, in the Montéregie region. He became the coach of the Montreal Canadiens for the first time during the 1926-27 season. The previous season, they had finished in last place. But by the 1929-30 season, Hart had led them to the championship, with back-to-back Stanley Cup victories in both 1929-30 and 1930-31. Hart was fired in 1932, but in 1936, he was brought back by popular demand, to rebuild the team.

Known as one of the NHL’s greatest coaches at the time, Hart’s record was unmatched. Under his direction, the Montreal Canadiens became one of sport’s leading franchises.

The Hart Memorial Trophy, given annually to the Most Valuable Player in the National Hockey League, has been won by sixteen Montreal Canadiens players. In 1992, Hart was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.

Learn More: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Hart
http://jewsinsports.org/profile.asp?sport=hockey&ID=3
http://imjm.ca/location/2178

Mohr was born in Wroclaw, Poland and came to Quebec City around 1871. He was granted the exclusive rights for seven years to establish a telegraph company in Quebec, which he did in 1876, called City District Telegraph Company. During this time, he also introduced telephones to Quebec City. In fact, he was convicted of creating “public obstacles” for putting up telephone poles in Buade Street in Quebec City. As Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone became increasingly popular, Mohr’s company won the province-wide rights to the invention. After successfully introducing telephones to Quebec, Mohr eventually became an agent of the newly created Bell Telephone Company of Canada.

Mohr then turned his attention to electrical power. On September 29, 1885, the Compagnie de lumière électrique de Québec et Lévis lit up Terrasse Dufferin by transporting the “fluid” created by Montmorency Falls and, as further described in le Canadien, “by means of an electric bell, the appearance of the terrace was transformed as if by a magic wand.” Once Mohr showed how he could stop and instantaneously restart the electrical current, people clamoured for the installation of electricity in their homes.

In November of 1893, Mohr caught influenza while trying to restore a damaged power line and died shortly thereafter, leaving a widow and six children, one of whom, Eugene Phillip, managed the company, overseeing Brooklyn’s telephone and electrical infrastructure.

Learn More: 

http://www.ville.quebec.qc.ca/culture_patrimoine/patrimoine/epigraphes/epigraphes_fiche_mohr.asp
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMMN7F_Plaque_bleue_de_Sigismund_Mohr_Qubec_Qc_Canada
http://qahn.org/files/quebecanglophoneheritagenetwork/documents/qhn/QHN%20Sept-Oct%202008_web%20edition.pdf

Cohen was born to a prosperous Jewish family in Westmount. His grandfather, Lyon Cohen, was the owner of the successful men’s clothing manufacturing firm, the Freedman Company, and was perhaps the Jewish community’s foremost leader during the early decades of the 20th century. His father, Nathan Cohen, died when Cohen was just nine years old, leaving him under the care of his Russian-born mother, Masha, as the family became more dependent on the support of his father’s brothers. Cohen attended Roslyn School and then Westmount High School, while also going to Hebrew school and becoming a bar mitzvah at the Shaar Hashomayim synagogue, where his family was actively involved. It was during his adolescence that he turned more and more to writing and learned to play guitar.

At McGill University, Cohen met the poet and English professor Louis Dudek, who helped publish Cohen’s first book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies, in 1956, soon after Cohen’s graduation. During the 1950s, Cohen encountered poet Irving Layton, who became another mentor. After graduating, Cohen continued to publish poetry, but also produced his first two novels, The Favourite Game (1963) and Beautiful Losers (1966), while living on the small Greek island of Hydra in the Aegean Sea. In 1967, Cohen relocated to the US and began performing his own songs in the New York folk music scene. His debut album, Songs of Leonard Cohen, featuring songs such as “Suzanne” and “So Long, Marianne,” garnered him fame in both folk circles and with a wider audience. He continued to develop as a songwriter and performer, notably on the Phil Spector-produced Death of a Ladies’ Man (1977), which featured cameos from Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg. Various Positions (1984) featured some of Cohen’s most well-known songs, including “Hallelujah” and “Dance Me to the End of Love.”

In the 1990s, Cohen spent five years living in a secluded Buddhist retreat outside Los Angeles, returning to music in 2001 with Ten New Songs. In recent years he has continued to come out with new albums. His 14th, You Want It Darker, was released on October 21, 2016.

The recipient of innumerable lifetime achievement awards, an inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and a Companion of the Order of Canada, Cohen maintained a residence in Montreal’s Plateau neighbourhood until he passed away in 2016.

Special thanks to the Museum of Jewish Montreal.

Learn More: 

http://imjm.ca/location/2374
http://mimj.ca/location/2379
http://www.leonardcohen.com/home
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/leonard-cohens-montreal
https://www.nfb.ca/film/ladies_and_gentlemen_mr_leonard_cohen/
http://blog.nfb.ca/blog/2012/09/21/4-leonard-cohen-films/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCbekHrQNYU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nky_3iwJxic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44-xVe_vivs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgwQPydLSIw

Born in Haifa, Israel, Safdie moved to Canada with his family as a young man. He studied architecture at McGill University and launched his career in Montreal, developing the Habitat 67 concept as part of his Master’s thesis. After completing the project, he returned to Israel, where he worked on the restoration of Old Jerusalem and the design of the new town of Modi’in.

Today, the architecture firm Safdie Architects has several branch offices in locations including Somerville (Massachusetts), Toronto and Jerusalem. Safdie is the creator of numerous iconic architectural projects around the globe including the Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion of Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts, the new Yad Vashem buildings (Jerusalem Holocaust History Museum) in Israel, the ArtScience Museum in Singapore, and the Salt Lake City Public Library in the United States.

Safdie has taught at McGill, Yale and Ben Gurion University. He has also served as Director of the Urban Design Program and as the Ian Woodner Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He has written several books about his vision for architecture and his projects, including Beyond Habitat (1970), Jerusalem: The Future of the Past (1989) and The City After the Automobile (1997). In 2004, Montreal filmmaker Donald Winkler made a documentary about Moshe Safdie, The Power of Architecture, with the architect’s participation.

In 2009 the Minister of Culture and Communications Christine St. Pierre announced that Habitat 67 would be designated as a historic monument by the Quebec government – the first modern building to receive this distinction.

Over the years, Safdie has been the recipient of many awards and honours, including the Order of Canada and the Gold Medal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. This Israeli-Canadian, who studied in Montreal and launched his career in the city, is today one of the world’s most respected architects.

Special thanks to the Museum of Jewish Montreal.

Learn More: 

www.imjm.ca/location/2317
https://vimeo.com/164327577
https://www.ted.com/talks/moshe_safdie_on_building_uniqueness?language=en
https://www.ted.com/talks/moshe_safdie_how_to_reinvent_the_apartment_building?language=en
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zB8XPwbXSY
http://www.cnn.com/videos/style/2016/06/07/spc-the-invitation-moshe-safdie-architecture-singapore.cnn

While everyone agrees that Eastern European Jewish immigrants brought “beygels” to North America, who actually introduced them to Montreal remains a source of great controversy.

Chaim (Hyman) Seligman is credited by some with having started Montreal’s first bagel bakery. Born in 1878 in Tsarist Russia, Seligman moved to Canada around 1900, eventually settling just off St. Laurent. His bakery had humble roots, with Seligman delivering bagels by horse and wagon, transported the Russian way – strung together by the dozen. No early records of Seligman’s bakery exist, and evidence in directories only points to Seligman’s working for a Montreal bagel bakery in the 1940s and 50s. Seligman may even have been a driver in the late 1930s for another Montreal bagel bakery, owned by Isadore Shlafman and Jacob Drapkin.

Shlafman and Drapkin are also reputed to be the first to introduce bagels to Montreal. Tucked away in the lane at 3835 St. Lawrence, this other Montreal bagel bakery may have opened in 1919, although it only appears in address directories starting in 1932. It served hand-rolled bagels, baked in a wood-fired oven. In 1949, Shlafman moved from St. Lawrence Boulevard to Fairmount Street, where, along with his son, Jack, he expanded his bagel business, known as Fairmount Bagel. It would remain at that location until 1959. Drapkin continued to operate his Montreal bagel bakery on St. Lawrence until 1956.

In 1953, Holocaust survivor Myer Lewkowicz began working for Seligman; he did so until he was able to launch his own bagel business, in 1957. Lewkowicz briefly partnered with Shlafman and the store took on the name Fairmount Bagel, despite its location on St. Viateur. Bagels were not yet a very profitable venture and the partnership dissolved by the early 1960s. That store is now known as St. Viateur Bagel. It was sold by Lewkowicz in the 1990s to his apprentice, Joe Morena. Though Italian, Morena earned the nickname “Yosef” due to his impressive grasp of the Yiddish language. Today’s Original Fairmount Bagel Bakery, which reopened in 1979 at its original location on Fairmount Street, is still managed by Shlafman’s grandchildren.

St. Viateur’s has served a number of famous visitors, including Prince Charles. One busy Saturday night, Morena received an order for 20 dozen bagels for His Royal Highness. Dismissing it as a prank, he admonished the caller, only to be met by a fleet of limousines and a British naval officer coming for his order. The flustered Morena instructed the officer to “get in line like everyone else,” and Prince Charles was eventually rewarded with a taste of Montreal bagels. The Fairmount Bagel Bakery has its own share of notables; in 2008, Montreal-born astronaut Greg Chamitoff, a relative of the Shlafman family, brought Fairmount Bagel bagels with him aboard the space shuttle Discovery.

Special thanks to the Museum of Jewish Montreal.

Learn More: 

http://imjm.ca/location/1054
http://stviateurbagel.com/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/world_news_america/8681796.stm
http://www.dacodoc.net/video.php?video=bagels (Short documentary on the Montreal Bagel Wars)
http://www.seligman.org.il/seligman_bagel.html
http://www.forward.com/articles/14502/#ixzz15gkJZ2j2

Born Solomon Bellows in Lachine, Quebec, two years after his Lithuanian-Jewish parents emigrated from Saint Petersburg, Russia, Bellows would go on to become one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. At nine, his family moved to the West Side of Chicago, which became the inspiration for much of his work. Rebelling against his mother’s wishes for him to become a rabbi or a concert pianist, Bellow pursued a career in writing.

Bellow studied Sociology and Anthropology and, during the Second World War, he served in the merchant marine, during which time he wrote his first novel. In 1948, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship, which he used to support himself in Paris while writing. Returning to the US, Bellows taught at Yale University, the University of Minnesota, New York University, Princeton University, University of Puerto Rico, University of Chicago, Bard College and Boston University.

Bellow won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976 for Humboldt’s Gift. He also received the Pulitzer Prize and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only writer to win the National Book Award for Fiction three times and, in 1990, he received the National Book Foundation’s lifetime Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

Bellow was married five times, all but the last ending in divorce, and he fathered his fourth child at age 84.

Learn More: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Bellow
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/17/the-five-essential-saul-bellow-novels
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1976/bellow-bio.html
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/11/young-saulhttp://www.biography.com/people/saul-bellow-9206329
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/17/i-got-a-scheme-the-moment-saul-bellow-found-his-voice
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/04/saul-bellow-biography-zachary-leader-martin-amis

Helbronner embarked on a career in journalism, starting at Le Journal d’Arthabask, then joining the weekly Le Moniteur du commerce in 1882, and becoming its editor-in-chief two years later. During this time, he developed a growing interest in the labour movement and began a sporadic column in La Presse (a daily newspaper focused on municipal affairs and labour) under the pseudonym Jean-Baptiste Gagnepetit. His condemnation of the “corvée,” a regressive fiscal measure imposed on Montreal tenants, helped lead to its elimination in 1886. From 1892 to 1908, Helbronner exerted great influence as editor-in-chief of La Presse, and then joined the team of the paper La Patrie.

A social reformer, Helbronner advocated for change both on and off the page. In the context of increasing industrialisation, he supported labour organizations while also promoting political action and social justice. In 1885, he himself became a member of the Knights of Labor, as well as an executive member of the Central Trades and Labor Council of Montreal. He also participated in the French Chamber of Commerce in Montreal (1887-1905), the National French Union (1901-1909) and the Royal Commission on the Relations of Labor and Capital.

An assimilated Jew of considerable influence, Helbronner also spoke out against the rise of anti-Semitism at a time when few Jews openly opposed it. Though most closely associated with Montreal’s French-language community, Helbronner remained proud of his Jewish cultural heritage, and strongly condemned various manifestations of anti-Semitism around the world, including the Dreyfus affair in the 1890s.

In 1906, he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour.

Special thanks to the Museum of Jewish Montreal. 

Learn more: 

http://mimj.ca/location/1068
http://www.cjhn.ca/permalinkFR/191
http://www.lapresse.ca/

Emile Berliner was born in Hanover, Germany. Son of a Talmudic scholar, Berliner worked odd jobs after completing public school in 1865. In 1870, he accepted a position with a dry-goods company called Behrend, requiring him to immigrate to the United States. While working for that company, Berliner witnessed Alexander Graham Bell’s demonstration of the telephone at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. He immediately began to study the possibilities and shortcomings of Bell’s invention, and invented a new transmitter in 1878, improving upon Bell’s design. Thomas Watson from the American Bell Telephone Company immediately offered Berliner a job as a research assistant.

Berliner worked for the American Bell Telephone Company until 1883, when he moved from Boston to Washington, D.C., to embark on new research. In 1887, the year widely considered to mark the beginning of the record industry, Berliner embarked on his greatest invention, the gramophone. The Imperial Patent Office, proclaiming his invention superior to that of Edison’s cylinder phonograph, honoured Berliner for his achievement in 1890. After conflicts with his associates over the exclusivity of sales rights, Berliner was obliged to cease selling his product in the United States, and came to Montreal at the beginning of the 1900s. He established the Berliner Gram-O-Phone Company in St-Henri in 1908, and expanded his business on the same street block in 1912. This company was the precursor to many major record labels, such as RCA-Victor, Deutsche Grammophon, Universal Music Group, EMI and Sony Music Group. Berliner stayed at the head of the company until 1924, when it was purchased by the Victor Talking Machine. Berliner’s sons, Herbert and Edgar, were involved in the Montreal recording industry in the 1920s and 1930s, including the emerging Francophone market at that time. In fact, La Bolduc, a pioneer of Quebecois folk music, made her first recording in 1929 with Herbert’s company.

Berliner was also involved in social and community affairs. His main focus was public health, especially that of children, and he supported efforts for cleaner milk. Berliner was an ardent defender of women’s equality, a talented composer and musician, and was deeply interested in aeronautics. In 1907, he even invented a helicopter prototype. He was an active Zionist and wrote countless articles and letters between 1913 and 1919, calling for a Jewish home in Palestine. He never lived permanently in Montreal, but often visited the city to manage his business.

Special thanks to the Museum of Jewish Montreal.

Learn More: 

http://imjm.ca/location/1564
http://mimj.ca/location/1749
http://moeb.ca/en/emile-berliner
http://studiovictor.ca/en/hystory/
http://www.ameriquefrancaise.org/en/article-298/first_recordings_of_popular_songs_in_french_canada.html
https://memory.loc.gov/ammem/berlhtml/berlemil.html

Bens, which opened in 1911, claimed to be Montreal’s first delicatessen. Catering to factory workers at their fruit store on St. Lawrence and Duluth, Ben and Fanny Kravitz expanded their repertoire to include smoked meat sandwiches, using Lithuanian techniques. In 1925, the store was renamed B. Kravitz Delicatessen (also known as Bens de Luxe Delicatessen Sandwich Shop) before moving to Burnside Street (now de Maisonneuve), where it remained until 2006, when it closed due to a labour dispute.

While Kravitz promoted himself as having introduced smoked meat to Montreal, Lovell’s Directory and newspaper ads reveal that Hyman Rees’ British-American Delicatessen Store (on St. Lawrence near Ontario) was actually dispensing smoked meat sandwiches in 1908, a few years prior to the establishment of Fanny’s Fruit and Candy Store. While Rees’ was the first sit-down delicatessen to sell smoked meat, a series of butchers were preparing smoked meat as early as the 1890s. Aaron Sanft, a butcher on Craig Street (now St-Antoine), was perhaps the first. Using a Romanian recipe, he advertised his American Sausage Factory’s smoked meat in an 1894 Jewish calendar.

Another contender for Montreal’s smoked meat fame is the Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen, popularly known as Schwartz’s. Established in 1927 on St. Lawrence near Napoléon, and employing Romanian smoking techniques, the original owner, Reuben Schwartz, was forced to sell the business in 1932 due to his gambling and womanizing. The new owner, a musician named Maurice Zbriger, was reluctant to have his name affiliated with a “pedestrian eatery” and rehired Schwartz as his manager to front for him.

With the closing of Bens, many label Schwartz’s as the undisputed king of Montreal delis (although its competitors across the street at the Main Deli, as well as at Lester’s, Dunn’s and the Snowdon Deli would argue otherwise). The history of Schwartz’s is commemorated in Garry Beitel’s film, Chez Schwartz’s and Bowser & Blue’s Schwartz’s: The Musical.

According to Eiran Harris, the Jewish Public Library’s Archivist Emeritus, as smoked meat sandwiches gained an international culinary reputation, Jewish delicatessens expanded from four at the turn of the century to 45 in 1932. A number of these lesser-known delis prepared their own smoked meat, including Etinson’s, Rogatco’s, Chenoy’s, Hebrew National, Putter’s, Shagass’s, Levitt’s and Montreal’s Palestine Salami Factory. Today, few Jewish-style sit-down delis remain in Montreal, and none are under rabbinical supervision. However, they remain culinary landmarks, and popular tourist attractions.

Special thanks to the Museum of Jewish Montreal.

Learn More: 

http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/maurice-zbriger-emc/
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/theatre-and-performance/schwartzs-the-musical-do-you-want-it-on-rye-or-with-the-singing-pickle/article574477/
http://www.mtlblog.com/2016/05/the-real-story-behind-schwartzs-deli/#
http://imjm.ca/location/2363
https://soundcloud.com/iciradiocanadapremiere/la-viande-fumee-daaron-sanft-cest-pas-trop-tot
http://www.erudit.org/revue/cuizine/2009/v1/n2/037859ar.html