The Jews of Windsor, 1790-1990. Jonathan V. Plaut

scholarly gentleman was warmly received by the congregation and remained its spiritual leader until at least 1917.⁷⁰

      Aaron Meretsky continued as president of Shaarey Zedek until 1914, when Joseph Loikrec took over, with Joseph Kovinsky and Nathan Cohen remaining as treasurer and secretary, respectively, until 1916.⁷¹ Also in that year, Cohen and Loikrec were presented with gold medals in appreciation of their services to the congregation.⁷²

       The Beginning of a Jewish Cemetery

      When a Jewish resident of Windsor died, funeral services were usually held at the home of the deceased. In the absence of a local cemetery, burial took place in Detroit. Janisse Brothers, a local Christian funeral home, made all of the arrangements. Following the establishment of Shaarey Zedek in 1906–7, however, religious Halachic practices — practices according to Halacha, the collective corpus of Jewish law, traditions, and customs — could be performed in the basement of the synagogue before transferral of the casket to Detroit for internment.⁷³ The general inadequacy of these procedures and more particularly, those encountered following the death of a child, aroused the concern of Jerry Glanz, a 26-year-old Russian immigrant.⁷⁴ In 1914, shortly after coming to Windsor, he decided to look after Jewish funeral arrangements. He remained the community undertaker until his death, when his son, David Glanz, took over the function.

      Aaron Meretsky purchased land for a Jewish cemetery on Pillette Road, in 1917. Although acting as an agent for Shaarey Zedek, he held title to the land for a good number of years.⁷⁵ The first person to be buried there was a child by the name of Philip Jaffe, whose funeral took place on April 15, 1917.⁷⁶ Less than a week later, Joseph Kovinsky’s mother-in-law, Rachel Sobelsky, died. She was interred at the Pillette Road Cemetery on April 22, 1917.⁷⁷

      By this time, Shaarey Zedek’s tax exemption as a church property was listed at $6,000.⁷⁸ The synagogue had no rabbi until 1922, when it called upon D. Golden. He came from Detroit with a seven-voice choir to conduct High Holiday services.⁷⁹ In 1928, Peter Meretsky became the synagogue president with Rabbi Ashinsky from Detroit carrying out the various religious functions. In 1932, Aaron Meretsky was again chosen as president of Shaarey Zedek, a post he held until the end of his life.

       One Divided By Two — Tifereth Israel

      During the early years of the twentieth century, another wave of new immigrants began to arrive in Windsor. While the Jewish pioneers welcomed those to whom they were related, they ultimately came into conflict with those who had no such ties. The rift that developed between these two Jewish factions was mainly due to disagreements regarding the leadership of Shaarey Zedek.⁸⁰ To the one clique belonged those families who by then had become more affluent merchants (the Meretskys, Kovinskys, Bernsteins, Bensteins, Gellers, etc.). They saw themselves as the backbone of the Jewish community. Despite the fact that they originally had come from the same part of the world and had the same Orthodox background, they wanted their religious services to follow less stringent patterns. The other group (led by such newcomers as the Orechkins and Katzmans) not only favoured preserving the traditions and day-to-day practices they had so recently left behind, they also resented the fact that the members of the more established families continued to retain all the important synagogue positions.⁸¹ Honours were only passed around to those considered of equal status. The clash between these two opposing factions came to a head in 1914, the year Aaron Meretsky was re-elected president. Since the members could not resolve their differences and no consensus was reached, the Orechkin-Katzman clan decided to break away from Shaarey Zedek and form their own congregation. The outcome was the creation of Tifereth Israel, the synagogue was also known as “the Katzman Shul.” Nathan Orechkin was elected as the first president, B. Pazner as treasurer, M. Katzman and S. Mossman as trustees, and Samuel Abrahamson as secretary. The latter may have attended services at Shaarey Zedek until 1914 and was listed as its rabbi during the next two years, even though, in the meantime, he had become an active member of the splinter group.

      In 1919, the new Tifereth Israel⁸² moved into a small bungalow-style building at 48 Mercer Street, only a few doors from Shaarey Zedek.⁸³ The new quarters were listed with a church property tax exemption of $2,500.⁸⁴ The property had an outhouse in the backyard,⁸⁵ but the house had only one room on the ground floor, with neither basement nor attic.⁸⁶ It was difficult to convert this to a suitable Orthodox place of worship, where men and women could not sit together. After installing the Holy Ark, the room was partitioned so that the men would face the Ark for prayers. The women, who could only enter through the back door, were relegated to a space behind the Ark, where they watched the proceedings through a narrow opening no more than one foot wide.⁸⁷ The Orthodox services conducted by the butcher Orke Williams were typically lengthy and the children were permitted to leave the synagogue, rather than having to sit still until the bitter end. Some people clearly remembered playing football and other games on the street outside, or in nearby backyards, while their fathers continued to daven (worship) inside.⁸⁸ Tifereth Israel closed around 1925. The building remained vacant for many years until it was re-opened as a mikvah (ritual bathhouse).

      While their influence and affluence was increasing, the difficulties between Jews continued throughout the decades of the twentieth century. But the beginning of a permanent settlement began with the establishment of the first seeds of religious life.

      Photo courtesy of the Windsor Star

      Tifereth Israel Synagogue.

       The Path Toward Maturity

      Statistics clearly indicate that Windsor’s total population had surpassed the 12,000-mark by the third quarter of 1901.⁸⁹ Accounts regarding the number of its Jewish inhabitants, however, are conflicting, varying somewhere between 132 and 200 in 1900, but reaching 300 in 1911⁹⁰ — a marked increase from the sixteen listed by the 1891 census.

      Due to Essex County’s industrial and agricultural expansion during the first decade of the twentieth century, those Jews who had made Windsor their permanent home had also attained a marked degree of economic stability. Many former peddlers had become respected members of the community, some as well-to-do shopkeepers, while a large number had found prosperity in buying and selling junk. They included Aaron Meretsky,⁹¹ his brother, Jacob, and his son, Simon;⁹² Michael Rosen, who had moved from peddling to junk in 1906,⁹³ and the Kovinsky brothers — Joseph, Jacob, and Samuel⁹⁴ — who had gone into the business shortly after 1900. Max Bernstein, who had been a junk and scrap-iron dealer before the turn of the century, in 1904 became the manager of R. Bernstein and Sons — a firm named after his wife, Rebecca, and their son Albert.⁹⁵

      William Englander was still operating his grocery business at 122 Windsor Avenue.⁹⁶ Former peddler, Herman Benstein, who had purchased Charles Hawkins’ grocery store at No. 54 Pitt Street, at the corner of McDougall in February 1902,⁹⁷ two years later acquired the two adjacent locations at Nos. 56 and 58 Pitt Street. He subsequently turned these acquisitions into a general department store.⁹⁸

      Even before the turn of the century, other former peddlers, including Solomon Glazer⁹⁹ and Isaac and Benjamin Jacobson become second-hand dealers.¹⁰⁰ Isaac Weingarden, the first to open a business of this type in Sandwich, started another one, known as “The Model Store,” in 1905,¹⁰¹ while Schwartz and Cherniak operated a clothing business at 31 Sandwich Street West.¹⁰² Samuel K. Baum and his brother-in-law, Ben Brody had opened a home furnishing business in 1904.¹⁰³ Using such ingenious promotional methods as offering a fan to every lady who visited their shop,¹⁰⁴ they managed to improve their enterprise sufficiently to allow them to take over an entire building complex eight years later.¹⁰⁵ Jacob Meretsky’s son, David, also thrived. He publicized his shop by placing advertisements such as the following in the Evening Record: “Laurentian Stoves and Ranges are the best. Old Stoves Bought, Sold and in exchange — David Meretsky, 51 1/2 Pitt Street East. Opposite Market Square.”¹⁰⁶

      By