For many Jews who wanted to leave the farm, and for others newly
arrived in Alberta, small towns offered economic opportunities. At
one time, Jews lived in some fifty rural centres in the
province.20 Jewish merchants operated general stores in such
communities as Alliance, Beiseker, Big Valley, Czar, Daysland,
Irricana, Morrin, Munson, Olds, Turner Valley, Vegreville, and
Veteran. In the ^spirit of the Repstein brothers, merchants like
Leon Gutman operated a travelling store, which consisted of a
truck loaded with dry goods and a regular circuit to drive. Other
Jewish-owned businesses in small-town Alberta included car
dealerships, clothiers, furniture stores, and jewellery shops.21
Hotels in such places as Drumheller, Gleichen, Irricana, Okotoks,
and Vegreville were owned or managed by Jews at various times;
guests included itinerant Jewish cattle dealers, feed dealers, and
fur and hide buyers. Some Jewish doctors, pharmacists, and
teachers began their careers in small Alberta centres before
moving to the cities. Drumheller had a substantial Jewish
community, augmented by families in nearby coal-mining
villages. In a number of small towns, Jewish residents
participated in the broader community. In Rumsey, J.A. Guttman and
Max Waterman acted as Justices of the Peace and as school district
trustees. Czar merchant Benjamin Cohen served as mayor of that
village for years.22 Hyman Goldstick, spiritual leader in Edmonton
in 1906, later became the mayor of Edson.23
Sizeable Jewish communities also were established in two of
Alberta's smaller cities
Medicine Hat and Lethbridge. The
Medicine Hat community received a false start in 1881 when a
Jewish lumberman from Michigan, Louis Sands, set up five lumber
mills in the nearby Cypress Hills.24 At least one of his
employees, Isidor Feldman, was also Jewish. Both Sands and Feldman
had left by the turn of the century but by 1912 several Jewish
families homesteaded in the area. Jewish residents established a
cemetery and formed the Sons of Abraham Congregation, but not
until 1938 was a building acquired for synagogue purposes.25
The Lethbridge Jewish community originated around 1908 with the
arrival of the Goodman and Moscovich families and within three
years the growing city boasted fifty-four Jews, a synagogue, and a
Jewish cemetery.26 As in Medicine Hat, the Lethbridge synagogue
operated in private homes for many years before a synagogue
building was acquired.
Jewish communities in Alberta were profoundly affected by the
outbreak of World War One in 1914. Immigration came to a halt, and
across the province Jews focussed their attention on the suffering
in Europe. Most Alberta Jews had come from Europe, and nearly all
still had families there. During the war, Jewish organizations
raised money for European relief and for other war-related causes.
Proportionally, Jewish enlistment across Canada far exceeded the
numbers expected from so small a community. Among Alberta's many
Jewish servicemen and servicewomen were nurse Leila Rapoport of
Calgary, who became a home front Red Cross volunteer; Rumsey
pioneer Sam Hackman, who was killed in action in 1916; Simon
Zudeima of Calgary, killed in action in 1917; and Harry Woolfe, a
career Royal North-West Mounted Police officer who served overseas
with Lord Stralhcona's Horse and returned safely after the war.27
After the war's end in 1918, Jewish individuals and organizations
endeavoured to bring refugees and war orphans to Alberta. Canada
again opened its doors to immigrants, albeit briefly; by the end
of the 1920s restrictive immigration policies limited the number
of Jews entering Canada. Still, during that decade Alberta's
Jewish population increased by nearly 15 per cent, from 3,242 in
1921 to 3,722 a decade later.28 Many new arrivals were from Poland
and Russia, where Jewish life was becoming increasingly
intolerable.
While the Jewish population of Alberta's cities grew in the 1920s,
it withered in rural areas. During the 1920s and the 1930s, many
Jewish families were driven from their farms through drought, crop
failures, low grain prices, and enormous debts. Most Rumsey-Trochu
settlers relocated to Calgary. By the end of World War Two few
Jewish farmers remained on the land, and in rural Alberta, Jewish
institutions had all but disappeared.
Heritage Community Foundation Presents
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