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Jewish History - The Jewish District/Residential Patterns
The Jewish District/Residential Patterns
Before the Second World War, most Jews in Kingston lived where they worked. Their shops and homes were located predominately in the area of lower Princess Street and north of Princess towards Raglan Street, between Division to the west and Ontario to the east, hard by the waterfront.
Whereas the Jewish districts in places like New York and Montreal were often self-contained ethnic enclaves because of sheer critical mass, Kingston’s Jews, by virtue of their lack of numbers, were from the outset integrated more fully into the non-Jewish community.
In the Poland and the Pale of Settlement, Jews usually lived in shtetlach (little towns) segregated from their non-Jewish neighbors. When the mass migration of Jews to North America began in the late nineteenth century, it was not unusual for an entire shtetl to pick up and leave, only to transplant itself virtually intact in the New World. In Kingston, a smaller, family-scaled version of this phenomenon is detectable. As Steven Sloan wrote in his history of Beth Israel:
In most cases, the pattern of immigration followed along these lines: either the father or eldest son would emigrate, establish himself, and eventually send for the other members of his family. In Kingston, many residents adhered to this mode, among them Louis and Joseph Abramson, and their brothers-in-law J.B. Lesses and Isaac Zacks, who all came from an area in Russia known as Malch in 1895. Shortly thereafter came Keva Zacks, Isaac’s brother, and Saul Bennett, brother-in-law of the Zacks. Isaac Cohen came to form a partnership with Max Susman in 1898. Other established families were the Robinsons, Tevans and Turks. From Lithuania, sometime in the first decade of the twentieth century, came Meyer Rosen, who then sent for his father Moshe Velvel, his younger brother Hyman, and his sister Jennie. Joseph Abramsky first arrived in Kingston in 1893, because he had a friend, Max Teitelbaum, already living here. He returned to Poland, then came back to Canada for good in 1896, sending for his wife and children not much later. Abramsky also brought over three brother and a sister. . . . Benjamin and Ida Palmer both came from Grodno . . . in 1902-03. Ida’s uncle, Louis Langbort, was already here, as was her uncle Shimon Sugarman, who was Moe Sugarman’s grandfather.
Conclusion
The historical patterns that made this city’s early Jewish population possible having been set out, and the pioneers of this community having been introduced, it is time to start the tour of specific places of historic interest.
