Institution Row

Jewish foodways, and the inaccessibility of kosher food in other city spaces, in great part drove the development of specifically Jewish care institutions. Several of Toronto’s world-famous care facilities have their roots in early Ashkenazi Jewish community here. Today’s premier geriatric research & care hospital, Baycrest Centre, was created in 1914 as the Jewish Old Folks Home on Cecil Street; while Mount Sinai Hospital was established in 1922 to meet both the needs of Jewish patients who needed a kosher, Yiddish-language facility and the needs of Jewish doctors who needed employment. Both projects were championed by a small band of phenomenal women, the Ezras Noshem (“helping women”) Society, who voluntarily led the fundraising and the onsite patient care.

In 1917, the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies (later, United Jewish Appeal), was established to meet the material needs of the community’s most vulnerable – the elderly, orphans, new mothers, and the unemployed and/or unhoused. Under the FJP umbrella, organizations like the Hebrew Free Loan Association helped with business loans that could allow a merchant to buy stock for stores, peddler’s stands or tuck shops; and the Hebrew Maternity Aid Society ran a Mothers and Babes rest home where families could have a two-week camp vacation with “wholesome and nutritious food”. In the hard years of the Great Depression, the community came together to provide cheques of $2-8 to families in need of Passover food.

Discussion questions:

• What are some of the material needs going unmet in our society today? What are the structures, associations, or supports that could best address them?

• Both in the Jewish community and beyond, how can communities build up institutions and networks to take care of each other? Where is this work already happening?

Image credits:

Mothers' and Babes' Summer Rest Home (Bronte), 1919-1941. Ontario Jewish Archives.

Jewish rag picker on Bloor Street West, Toronto, 1911. City of Toronto Archives, fonds 1244, Item 616.