Talk:Beach Hebrew Institute

Shul's name

How could the name have been chosen to ward off Nazis when it was chosen in 1920? (The Nazi party was tiny and would have been unknown in Canada at that point.) I know that's what the source document says, but the source article too is confusing in that way. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:44, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

According to the sources, the synagogue's actual name was Beth Jacob Congregation or "Beit Knesset Beit Ya'akov". A look through Google books indicates that Swastika clubs were particularly active in the Beach area of Toronto in 1933; is it possible that it was at that time that the synagogue adopted the English name "Beach Hebrew Institute"? Jayjg ^(talk) 01:57, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

The original source appears to be the book "Memories of the Beach: Reflections on a Toronto Childhood" written in 2010 by a woman who was born in 1933 and grew up in the neighbourhood (the second source is a 2011 interview with someone who has belonged to the congregation for 30 years, ie since the 1970s, so it's likely he's relying on information he read in the aforementioned book). The recollection may be anecdotal rather than historical and if it dates from the author's childhood in the 1930s and 1940s it could well be apocryphal, ie since the Beach was well known in the 1930s for being the home of "Swastika Clubs" and since the synagogue used its English name in an attempt to avoid anti-Semitic reprisals it could be that the author assumed the former caused the latter. The Ontario Jewish Archives history at http://www.ontariojewisharchives.org/exhibits/TorontoSynagogues/synogogues/Beach/history.html dates the English name to 1919 (long before anyone in North America would have associated swastikas with anti-Semitism) and explains "They called it Beth Jacob in Hebrew and the Beach Hebrew Institute in English. Due to the lack of Jews in the area, as well as the anti-Semitic atmosphere at some points, the congregation tended to rely on the English name for the shul." While the quote regarding the Canadian German Party is attributed to reliable sources and is an authentic quote the information it conveys may be imprecise and anecdotal rather than historical) in particular, it's unclear what "Canadian German Party" actually refers to, there was no party by that name. Is the speaker using this as a colloquial name for a Canadian fascist party such as the National Union - which wasn't formed until ca. 1933 - or is it an informal way of referring to the Swastika Clubs and/or Nazi sympathizers in general (On page 23 of the book she also refers to the "Swastika party" which suggests that it is the Swastika clubs that the phrase "Canadian German Party" refers to.) I think that it would be more accurate to remove the actual quote, keep the sources, and state, as the Ontario Jewish Archives page does, that the congregation tended to use the name "Beaches Hebrew Institute" because of the anti-Semitic atmosphere in the area in the 1920s and 1930s and refer to the Swastika clubs as an example of local anti-Semitism rather than the direct cause of the name. Vale of Glamorgan (talk) 08:10, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I think both your analysis and proposed solution are sound. Do you want to make the changes? Jayjg ^(talk) 00:10, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

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