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

by the various local industries.⁵ Also in 1901, night school classes were started at the Central School, founded in 1871. These classes were discontinued six months later as only 5 percent of all eligible students took advantage of them and attendance was both poor and irregular.⁶ The vacated Central School premises subsequently became Windsor’s new City Hall.⁷

      In about 1905, several new public schools were built, including Dougall Avenue, King Edward, and St. Anne’s Separate School. The Jewish children attended Tuscarora, Park, Mercer, Assumption, Wyandotte, and Dougall,⁸ and despite the fact that a good number of them were recent immigrants who had just learned to speak English, their enrolment was considerably higher proportionately in comparison to that of the Gentile population. Many won prizes during oratorical, poetry, and essay competitions, as well as receiving awards at commencement exercises.⁹

      Although a particularly memorable “success story” of a different kind has been told about the newly arrived Simon Meretsky who, despite his expulsion from school for using bad language, managed to become a wealthy man, most other pupils did very well scholastically.¹⁰ An indication of their intellectual prowess is the appearance of so many Jewish names on honour rolls,¹¹ together with the high marks the majority received in examinations — the results of which were regularly published in the local newspaper. That these students’ achievements evoked a certain amount of envy and anti-Semitism is borne out by the following bold and surprisingly enlightened editorial in the Evening Record of June 11, 1911:

      President Taft has shown himself a man above racial prejudice by twice rebuking those who have displayed bigoted opposition to the presence of Jews. On one occasion he tendered some peppery expressions on rejection of a Jewish applicant by a New York Club. The president’s latest broadside was provoked by treatment of a Jew who sought a military commission and was unfavourably reported on by some numbskull clothed with authority.

      There are peanut-minded gentiles who profess to be astonished at the progress the Jewish people are making and their remarkable faculty for amassing money.

      It must be admitted the Jews have solved the problem of taking care of themselves. They are loyal to their race, they stand by each other, they support their widows and orphans, the hand of charity is never withheld, and yet they do not display in their philanthropy the same stupid race hatred that they encounter from the so-called Christians.

      The Jewish boys and girls succeed wonderfully well in the Windsor public schools and in the Collegiate. They are taught and trained to acquire just a little better proficiency and just a little more knowledge than the other children in order that when they attain the profession they seek they will be sufficiently well equipped to overcome the handicap of an unjust and unfair racial opposition. They appreciate more than anyone else that nothing succeeds like success, and their success comes because it is deserved.¹²

      Most of the written records about pre-1900 Jewish education have unfortunately been lost, so we have had to rely on the somewhat sketchy and often unreliable recollections of a few former students who told us that, since no formal Hebrew school existed in Windsor before 1906, pioneer parents too busy trying to earn a livelihood spent little time worrying about their children’s religious training. Apparently, the younger ones picked up what they could at home, while the older ones sporadically attended private lessons given by transient melameds from Detroit. Others were taught by resident shochetim or by members of the community deemed to be equally knowledgeable.¹³ Former students also recalled that regular classes were available long before permanent locations existed. Classes were held in a room behind Abrahamson’s butcher shop, across the street from Shaarey Zedek,¹⁴ or in the basement of the newly constructed Tifereth Israel synagogue at the corner of Mercer and Brant Streets. The teachers they remembered were Nathan Cherniak, Isaac Kaplan, Harris Wolenske¹⁵ — who held classes in his home on Sabbath afternoons — Morris Gitlin,¹⁶ a Mr. Cohen, and another man named Richardson, who used to teach in Ford City.¹⁷

      Classes were comparatively unstructured and set up in such a way that one teacher could instruct every age group at the same time.¹⁸ The melameds taught all the students how to daven, made the boys learn their maftir (Torah reading), as well as preparing them for their bar mitzvah.¹⁹ Since the strap or cane was used frequently, some old-timers vividly could recall the “lickings” they got for failing to pay attention.

      By 1914, Hebrew school enrolment had become large enough to warrant more classes. Strongly supported by Samuel Geller and Jerry Glanz, the quality of instruction also improved with each passing year. Since it was wartime, the Evening Record of November 12, 1915, made special mention of the prayers offered by sixty Jewish students for the welfare of the British armed forces.²⁰ Dated December 2, 1915, another item dealing with public examinations, pointed out that the Detroit rabbis who conducted them insisted that all the children translate Hebrew texts into English.²¹ Early in 1916, Joel Gelber, Reverend Abrahamson, and I. Rosenberg served as judges at graduation exercises, awarding prizes to Eva Croll, Harry Schwartz, Kate Mossman, Lily Waldman, Ida Snider, and David Orechkin²² — all pupils of teachers Samuel Landy and Max Rosenberg. In that same year, the students put on a Purim play with Leo Croll, Rose and Milton Meretsky, Ida Brown, Sadie and Ben Baum, and Edith Abramson in the cast.²³

       Sports, Social, and Cultural Activities

      Apart from excelling in educational endeavours, the younger Jewish set also got involved in countless sports activities. In 1912, Harry Cherniak won the twenty-five-yard dash and Tibe Orechkin came first in the needle-and-thread race.²⁴ In 1917, Samuel K. Baum was president of the local curling club and, following that year’s cross-country races, in which Leo Croll, Jacob Geller, David Greenberg, and William Weingarden participated, Leo Croll²⁵ was crowned champion athlete of Windsor, winning the juniors’ medal in 1918.²⁶ As rugby had been a very popular sport by 1916, Edsel Meretsky became a substitute player on the Collegiate Institute team, while I. Meretsky played backfield a year later.²⁷ Other Jewish boys, including Israel Modlinsky, David Croll, Erwin and I. Bert Meretsky, and David Greenberg joined the team in 1918;²⁸ those who distinguished themselves received a letter from the school praising their athletic abilities. During that year, David Croll and Israel Modlinsky were on the reserve basketball team;²⁹ Croll and David Greenberg also became active soccer players in 1919.³⁰

      Many Jewish adults began to take time out from work to attend social events, such as their children’s piano recitals³¹ at the end of each school year, card parties, teas, and dances, as well as the occasional political meeting.³² While most of these functions were held in and around Windsor, families affluent enough to travel often ventured further afield. When they returned from their trips, any adventures they may have had were usually reported in the social column of the Border Cities Star.³³

      Parents anxious for their children to marry used a variety of methods to find suitable partners for them. Although they mostly introduced them to each other at local gatherings, some sent their sons and daughters to the homes of friends or relatives in other Canadian or American cities, hoping they would meet their prospective spouses there. Peter Meretsky’s mother and father likely were among those who even condoned advertising for a potential mate, since a notice of that type appeared in the “personal” column of a 1901 newspaper.³⁴ If these and other matrimonial searches resulted in engagements and weddings, they usually were celebrated in style by the entire community.

       War Relief and Charity

      Between 1914 and 1918, the Windsor press made no specific mention of any Jews from the region having enlisted in the armed forces. This omission was likely due to the absence of records indicating deaths on the battlefield, although several oral histories have cited the names of Jewish soldiers who served in the Canadian or American armies.³⁵

      Since aid and general relief were vital during World War I, the members of Windsor’s Jewish community directed their energies not only toward support of the war effort but also toward assisting Jewry in war-torn Europe.³⁶ Having collected money in 1905, when the