Papineau
 

Places
       					 
Cheder - Talmud Torah
(Also Herman and Kaufman on this segment.)

Audio is ON


Philip:	Herman.  Herman lived on ah Marquette Street, on the uh south east corner.  Yeah, Marquette street.
	And I just remember that they were in the taxi, that they were taxi drivers of that family.
	I mean, I see them, you know?

Peter:  Remember the kids?

Philip: I see two kids but I can’t remember much.  The kids were a lot older than me.  I mean I see two
        son a lot older than me.

Peter:  Like how much more?

Philip: Much older than me.

Peter:  Because I wondered about another family here in Ottawa but that wouldn’t be the case.  And Kaufman?
        Were there Kaufman’s on Marquette?

Philip: Yeah, there was a Kaufman on Marquette who was right across with Talmud Torah, or the cheder.  Um,
        and had like a store where you could buy coffee and cokes and chips and… like a little general store.

Peter:  That cheder, was that just an afternoon, after-school thing?

Philip: It was an afternoon school thing.

Shirley: It was a lunchtime thing too.

Philip: A cheder?

Shirley: Oh sorry, I thought you were talking about the restaurant.

Philip: No.  The cheder was um, an after… it wasn’t a… I don’t know, nobody went there fulltime, but it was a
        large place.

Peter:	Empty during the day?

Philip: Empty during the day.  I only remember it was empty during the day.  Kids went after.
        There was a basement and there was a cheder with rooms and there was a hall.  And um… there’s another
        fact.  I remember Morris Bryant who’s at Hillel now, coming there as part of AZA giving a talk there
        at that cheder.


[Note this may be the Y. Herman who wrote The Pinkas, an account of the comings and goings
of the Red Shul.]

The teacher's name was Elimelech. Once Hillu Diamond came to the door and asked for Rabbi Elimelech and 
squirted him with a water pistol. Hillu ended up as a terrific violinist. I remember the father chasing 
through the all of Papineau looking for him because the teacher was there but Hillu wasn't.
A bit wild but a terrific kid.

I'm not sure if we learned Hebrew only at Mrs Wolofsky's or here too.

Photo of the cheder courtesy of Leslie Lutsky. The designation on the back of the photo:
"Talmud Torah - Hebrew School of Shaarei Zion Institute 1919."






  



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