Members Blog

Running Through Jewish Kingston

Yesterday’s run took me through campus and past the newly reopened JDUC - Queen’s University’s student life centre.

Most people walking by likely think of it simply as a refreshed space for clubs, studying, and late-night coffee. But I learned a few years ago that there’s something else buried beneath this building - a nearly forgotten piece of Jewish Kingston.

Before the JDUC stood here, this site was home to Isaac and Anna Cohen, leaders of the early 20th-century Jewish community in Kingston.

In his memoir Adventures of a Chemist Collector, Queen’s alumnus Alfred Bader z”l writes about attending Shabbat dinners in the Cohen home during the 1940s. He describes their warmth, hospitality, and the comfort he found at their table as a young newcomer to Canada. But Isaac Cohen was much more than a generous host.

He was born in Seda, Lithuania in 1873, arrived in Kingston in 1898, and built a scrap metal business that grew into the Kingston Rag & Metal Company, one of the largest operations of its kind between Toronto and Montreal. But his impact extended far beyond business:

• In 1910, he helped unite Kingston’s divided Jewish congregations, promising to fund a new synagogue if they came together. That promise led to the construction of Beth Israel on Queen Street, the city’s first purpose-built synagogue.

• In 1945, he was part of the team that purchased Queen’s first Hillel House on Barrie Street.

• His family donated the Aron Kodesh (Holy Ark) still in use today at Beth Israel’s current location. It features a parochet (curtain) woven from metal - a nod to the family’s roots in the scrap trade.

• And inside Memorial Hall at Kingston City Hall, one of the stained-glass windows commemorating the Battle of Vimy Ridge was commissioned by Cohen to honour Canadian sacrifice in WWI.

Cohen also served as a city alderman, helped found the Kiwanis Club in Kingston, and was deeply involved in Zionist fundraising efforts for the Yishuv as early as the 1910s. His wife Anna helped found Hadassah in Kingston and was equally involved in building Jewish communal life.

And then there’s this story I came across as I pepares this post and definitely made me smile:

In 1914, Isaac reportedly persuaded the commandant of Fort Henry to release several interned Jewish men (during this period anyone suspected of having Austrian citizenship had been rounded up as a potential enemy alien, including a number of Jews, many of whom weren’t even Austrian) so they could attend Chanukah services - and never brought them back. Years later, a writer in the Kingston Whig-Standard would affectionately refer to him as “Kingston’s Moses.”

None of this is marked at the JDUC. No plaque. No sign. But yesterday’s run reminded me that these stories are still here - waiting to be told.

This is what my new series - Running Through Jewish Kingston - is all about.

Each time I run, I stop and reflect on a piece of this city’s rich Jewish past. It’s not always visible, but it’s very much still present.

Yos Tarshish 

If you would like to check out recent posts. These are the first three in the series:

- The “Time” Sculpture - https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19Sjo2M1Zj/?mibextid=wwXIfr

- The site of Beth Israel’s Queen Street building - https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1AAjTVyZ2s/?mibextid=wwXIfr

- The John Deutsch University Centre (JDUC) which was built on the site of the Cohen family’s home - https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1YXhAyqqAa/?mibextid=wwXIfr