Historic plaques, monuments, and markers in Ontario

This summer, we’re updating and re-printing some posts from our old website. This one was first posted in July, 2019, on our old website. We’ve added some new places to check out.

Ellen writes:

In my last post, I told you about historical plaques and markers about the Jewish community in Western Canada. Continuing east, there is a wealth of information about Ontario. As usual, we recommend you throw a JewJu Bag into your suitcase or duffle for your Shabbat on the road, and print this to tuck into the bag!

Thanks to the efforts of Alan L. Brown, it’s easier to find historical plaques in Ontario than anyone else. From his website, http://www.ontarioplaques.com/, from April 2019:

Welcome. I'm Alan L Brown. I'm a 73-year-old retired school librarian who left the profession in June, 2002. I've had an interest in plaques since I was a kid. Now that I'm retired, I set out, in March 2004, with my trusty digital camera, to take a photo of each of the Provincial government's Ontario Heritage Trust plaques and create a page for each on this site

Thanks to him, we can share a good number of plaques in Ontario. Waymarking, a crowd-sourced listing of historical places, has also been a great source of information. There are so many sites in Toronto that we’re listing them in a separate blog.

Moving from west to east, then, here are some plaques and monuments that you may want to visit during your travels.

In the Dieppe Gardens at Ouellette Avenue and Viale Udine, in Windsor, you’ll find a bust of Herb Gray. In 1969, Gray became Canada’s first Jewish federal cabinet minister. He was one of the longest-serving Members of Parliament in Canada’s history, serving from 1962 to 2002.

Outside the courthouse at 80 Dundas Street  in London, is a plaque commemorating the legal case of  Noble & Wolf v. Alley. In this case, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled against a clause in a real estate agreement forbidding the anyone to sell or rent the property to “ any person of the Jewish, Hebrew, Semitic, Negro or coloured race or blood”. This was one of a number of cases brought by the Canadian Jewish Congress in the 1950’s to break down discriminatory barriers.

There is a memorial in the airpark of the National Air Force Museum of Canada in Trenton, dedicated to Jewish personnel who died in service.

In English, Hebrew, and French, the inscription reads:

Erected in Memory of
the Jews who made the
supreme sacrifice as
members of the Canadian,
Commonwealth and Allied
Air Forces and the Valour
of their comrades.

If you’re visiting Ottawa, chances are you’ll go to the By Ward Market. While you’re there, look for the plaque at George Street and By Ward Market Square, which details the history of the area, and mentions that it was once the centre of the Jewish community.

The National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa is located on LeBreton Flats, at the corner of Booth Street and the Sir John A. MacDonald Parkway, west of Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Current information about visiting it is available here.

Finally, at the front steps to the Army Offers’ Mess at 149 Somerset Street in Ottawa, there’s a plaque for Lilian Bilsky Freiman, the first Jewish Canadian to receive the Order of the British Empire (OBE), and my new hero. Among her causes, she worked to rescue Polish orphans and Jewish Ukrainian orphans, she was a president of Hadassah-WIZO, and was appointed by the mayor to help deliver information about influenza and how to prevent its spread. She is also notable as the Canadian woman who first sewed poppies here to sell to support war veterans.

Stay tuned blogs about historic plaques, markers, and monuments in Toronto and in Eastern Canada. In the meanwhile, N’siyah Tovah!