Canadian Prairies

The Little Synagogue on the Canadian Prairie

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How the Lost Montefiore Institute Synagogue Was Found and

Came to Calgary’s Heritage Park Historical Village

By Irena Karshenbaum, Founder & President, The Little Synagogue on the Prairie Project Society

Jews Arrive in Alberta

Jacob and Rachel Diamond. Credit: Jewish Historical Society of Southern Alberta

The first Jews to settle permanently in the vast area that in 1905 would become the Province of Alberta tended to gravitate to the larger centres. In 1889, Calgary, already a bustling town in what was then the Northwest Territories, was in the midst of real estate speculation when the first of these settlers, Jacob Diamond, a Lithuanian immigrant, planted his roots there with his wife, Rachel (born Maria Stoodley).

Edmonton, 300 kilometres north of Calgary, is where Abraham and Rebecca Cristall settled in 1893, anchoring that town’s Jewish community.      

Location of some of the Jewish bloc settlements. Excerpted from Journey into Our Heritage by Harry Gutkin, p. 56.

Even though there were independent Jewish farmers working the land in various settlements across the young province, in places like Alliance, Acadia Valley, Cochrane, Rockyford, Okotoks, three Jewish bloc settlements emerged. All three were clustered in eastern Alberta. The independent Jewish farmers and the three bloc settlements — Trochu (1905), Rumsey (1907) and most importantly for our story, the Montefiore Colony (1910) — received assistance from the Jewish Colonization Association, with funds from Baron Hirsch’s bequest.

The clustering of the settlements occurred because Canada at the time espoused a bloc settlement policy. Sir Clifford Sifton championed this policy during his time as Minister of the Interior. The bloc policy allowed immigrants from the same ethnic group to settle near each other so they could create communities of support. Many ethnic groups formed bloc settlements — German, Mennonite, African American, Ukrainian and many others — Jewish included.

The Montefiore Colony

Jewish farmers harvesting on the Montefiore Colony. Credit: Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada.

In 1910, Bill Manolson and Louis Schacter filed for homesteads northwest of the village of Sibbald, located 5 kilometres east of the Saskatchewan border, establishing the Montefiore Colony. Twenty Jewish farmers soon followed.

        

Sir Moses Montefiore.

By 1914, the Colony had 53 residents. In 1916, the farmers decided that the colony was large enough that they needed a synagogue. To build the synagogue, they applied for and received a loan of $300 from the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA). They raised the remaining $1,200 from community members. Even though partial funding came from Baron Hirsch’s JCA, the colonists named their synagogue the Montefiore Institute, in memory of Sir Moses Montefiore. Sir Moses was an Italian-born, British Jewish philanthropist who had passed away thirty years earlier, in 1886, at the age of 100.

: The Little Synagogue on the Canadian Prairie

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Jewish Farmers on the Canadian Prairies

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Please do click on the links in the text. They lead to so much fascinating information.
Land of Hope

This post on Jewish farmers on the Canadian prairies was inspired by Land of Hope, the memoirs of Clara Hoffer. In 1907 Clara’s husband, Israel, co-founded the Sonnenfeld Colony in Saskatchewan. Clara had lived previously a little further north with her parents in the Lipton Colony, which was founded by Baron Hirsch’s Jewish Colonization Association (JCA) in 1901. Land of Hope was sent to me by Mark Gardner whose grandfather Aaron and great-uncle Harry also settled in Sonnenfeld. I am very grateful.

The Background

Louis Rosenberg, JCA Western Canada Director, 1916. Courtesy of Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada.

Between 1884 and 1912 thirty-one Jewish farming settlements were formed on the Canadian prairies spread out among three western provinces, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. 1 That is quite a hefty figure. Especially, when we remember that farming was not at all a typical Jewish profession where these settlers came from, Eastern Europe and Russia.

But somehow in Canada, things were different. As the Western Canada Director of Baron Hirsch’s Jewish Colonization Association, Louis Rosenberg noted, among all the peoples who settled in Canada, the percentage of those who farmed in Canada is lower than the percentage who farmed in their country of origin. Except for the Jews. By coming to Canada the Jews actually increased the percentage of farmers in their community. 2

And in Saskatchewan where most of the Jewish farming colonies were located, Jewish homesteaders were some of the first in the province. They arrived before the Doukhobors, Russians, Germans, Hungarians, and Ukrainians. “Only the “Mennonites and immigrants from Britain and Iceland,” preceded the Jews.3 In fact, the earliest marked grave in all of the Canadian prairies can be found in the Hirsch Colony cemetery. It belongs to Judah Blank and is dated December 18, 1894. 4

Baron Hirsch Helps Them Out

Baron Maurice de Hirsch

Baron Hirsch’s generosity helped many of these farmers. ( For a thorough discussion of how Baron Hirsch funds came to Canada see Chiel, Arthur (1961) “Agricultural Attempts, “The Jews of Manitoba, ” University of Toronto Press, 1961. ) Hirsch’s Jewish Colonization Association (JCA) only established two of the colonies, Hirsch and Lipton. But there was not one farming community “in the whole of Canada that [did] not benefit … from the assistance of [the JCA].” 5 The JCA helped build synagogues, offered the original capital for cooperatives, paid for teachers and rabbis, and gave out loans at half the usual bank rates, over 2000 loans between 1900 and 1923. 6

Spirit of Jewish farm colonies lives on, Leader-Post, Regina, July 5, 1980, pp. 8-9.

In fact, when the Regina, Saskatchewan Leader-Post published a story in July 1980 on the Jewish Farming Communities, they chose as their lead photo a portrait of the Baron.

This post is just an outline of this Canadian prairie story and doesn’t cover all of the settlements. There is so much more to tell and so many wonderful sources. So click on all the links in the text and footnotes and enjoy the richness of this history. Note that in footnote nr. 7 you can find a list of major works on this agricultural adventure.7

And if you are looking for information on a particular Jewish Canadian prairie farmer go to the website of the Canadian Jewish Heritage Network and put his or her name into the search bar. You could be amazed by what you find.

The Beginning

Sir Alexander Galt8

The year was 1882 and Sir Alexander Galt, Canada’s High Commissioner (Ambassador) in London was looking to help the Canadian government populate the Canadian West. The West had just become part of Canada a dozen years before. A transcontinental railroad, the Canadian Pacific, was being built, and treaties with the indigenous peoples had made the land available for settlers. Interestingly, the Canadians not only sought to build out their nation. They also wanted to settle the West quickly because they feared that pioneers in the United States would seek to extend the border further north. In addition, Galt had plans to build railroads to hook up with the transcontinental to transfer the coal from his newly purchased mines.

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  1. FRIEDGUT, T. H. (2007). Jewish pioneers on Canada’s prairies: The Lipton Jewish agricultural colony. Jewish History, 21(3/4), p. 390. [↩]
  2. Rosenberg, Louis, (1939) ” “Jews in Agriculture,” in Canada’s Jews: A social and economic study of Jews in Canada in the 1930s, p 218. , Text available at archive.net To use archive.net you need to establish a free account. [↩]
  3. Feldman, Anna (1995) A Woman of Valor, Who Can Find, Jewish-Saskatchewan Women in Two Rural Settings, 1882-1939, Historical Essays on Saskatchewan Women, eds: David De Brou, ‎Aileen Moffatt, University of Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, p. 62 [↩]
  4. Archer, John, Early Jewish Settlement in Western Canada, Part II, Viewpoint, Vol. 2, No. 4, 1967, p. 4 [↩]
  5. Rosenberg (1939) p 218. archive.net To use archive.net you need to establish a free account. [↩]
  6. Belkin, Simon (1926), “Jewish Colonization in Canada,” in Arthur Daniel Hart, ed., The Jew in Canada (Toronto and Montreal), pp. 486-487 (pp. 506-507 in the digital version. ) [↩]
  7. Major Works on Jewish Farmers on the Canadian Prairies:

    Chiel, Arthur (1961) “Agricultural Attempts, “The Jews of Manitoba, ” University of Toronto Press, pp. 43- 47,

    Settling the West: Immigration to the Prairies from 1867 to 1914, Canadian Museum of Immigration, Jan. 2022.

    Belkin, Simon (1926), “Jewish Colonization in Canada,” in Arthur Daniel Hart, ed., The Jew in Canada (Toronto and Montreal), pp. 483-488 (pp. 503-508 in the digital version),

    Wolff, Martin. “THE JEWS OF CANADA.” The American Jewish Year Book 27 (1925): 154–229. ( see especially Agricultural Colonies pp. 192-198)

    Rosenberg, Louis (1939), Jews in Agriculture, Canada’s Jews, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, pp. 217-225. (This is on archive.net. To use archive.net you need to establish a free account.) [↩]

  8. Library and Archives Canada, MIKAN 3215898  [↩]