Stories Celebrating 100 Years

Judy and Agi Adler, Hungary

When Agi Adler left Budapest after the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, she set off with her brother and husband on a complicated journey that included five days in a military prison, trekking through muddy fields to the Austrian border while her brother suffered a hernia, a train journey through the Italian Alps, and a ship across the Atlantic that caused widespread seasickness and made an unexpected stop in Morocco (“It was very beautiful and very different from anything we ever saw before”).  Agi’s mother, who had insisted that her children leave without her for a better future, joined the family in Toronto in 1959, the same year that Judy was born – the first Canadian citizen in the family.

“On January 4, 1957, we arrived in Halifax, where old abandoned military barracks were awaiting the incoming immigrants.  The Canadians were incredibly nice. From Halifax everyone was taken to Quebec City where we went through Immigration Services […] it was -40 degrees, with the snot freezing in our noses. [Finally, we] joined the others in Toronto.”

Today, Judy is a grandmother herself and a volunteer with JIAS Toronto, supporting newcomers to pay it forward: “My journey to volunteering with JIAS began when I was a child, and my father told me of the support that JIAS provided when they were newly arrived refugees from Hungary. My father was a physician in Hungary, and he needed to redo his medical internship and rewrite his exams in order to practice in Canada. I quickly learned that without JIAS, the life I enjoyed growing up would not have been possible.”

Maurice Benzacar, Morocco

We landed in Toronto on a Friday night in 1957 and were met by a young secretary who worked in JIAS, who took us to a hotel on Spadina Avenue. The Jewish community then was all Ashkenazim and […] they knew nothing about Moroccan Jews.

Then there was a big influx of immigrants coming from Morocco in the 60’s, and JIAS called us to help. I told the director of JIAS at that time, ‘I want when families are coming to make sure that an apartment is ready, that furniture is there that they will have something to eat in the morning and so on so.’ And this is how we did it.

Eventually I joined the staff and later became director of the agency.

Maurice Benzacar worked at JIAS as a caseworker and later as the Director of Settlement for 28 years. He contributed greatly to the agency, earning the nickname “Mr. JIAS”.

Click here to watch or read an extensive interview with Maurice Benzacar for Sephardi Voices.

Chetti Knoll (z”l), Romania

My grandmother Chetti Knoll (we called her Bua, short for Bunica) came to Canada via Italy in 1982 with my parents Nina & Iosif, and my older brother.

After arriving in Italy, my parents and grandmother went to the HIAS/Joint (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) offices, which were set up to assist Jewish refugees. Unfortunately, they were informed that these offices could only help my family move to Israel at that time.

My grandmother insisted that her son (my uncle) was already in Canada – so she had to join him there. She could technically get to Canada through a parental sponsorship – but then my parents and brother would have to go to Israel and be separated from her.

My grandmother (in her broken Yiddish with the broken Yiddish of the HIAS worker) asked the HIAS rep: “Sir, do you have children?” to which he replied that he did.  “Do they always listen to you?” she queried, to which he replied “no, of course not!”

“Well,” she continued “I told my son to go to Israel but he chose Canada. So how can you make me choose between my children?”

And so, Bua excellently pulled off her Jewish guilt trip and the HIAS officer coordinated with JIAS Canada’s Winnipeg office to get my parents on the refugee sponsorship list. They moved to Canada a few months later and the rest is history.

As told by Naomi Kramer 

Lilian & Mair Zamir, UK/Iraq

My wife and I (Lilian & Mair) came to Canada from the UK in 1970 as a newly married couple. The stories of how we each got to this point, however, were quite different.

Lilian was born to a Jewish family in Glasgow, Scotland, and I was born in Bagdad, Iraq, to a Jewish family with very deep roots which some in the family think may go as far back as the ancient times of Babylon!

My family emigrated (escaped) from Iraq to Israel. I later went to the UK for study, where I met Lilian. We married in Glasgow in 1969 and emigrated to Canada the following year where I was offered a position at The University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario.

Canadian citizenship was immediately available to Lilian on arrival because she was a British subject. At my own Canadian Citizenship ceremony five years later, the presiding judge was curious about me not waiting a day longer than the required 5-year wait time. He wanted to know my story and was quite moved by the details, particularly when I added that after five years in this country, this was the first time in my life that I felt truly ‘at home.’

More important, I told him that this was the first time I ever felt I could have children and give them what I never had, namely a country to call their own. Our four children were born in London, Ontario.

Elena Aleinikov, USSR

I was born in 1946 in Moscow, USSR.  My immigration history began in early 1973 when young Jewish people were inspired by the events in Israel and experienced rampant anti-Semitism in Soviet Russia. We started to secretively get together to discuss the possibility of leaving the country and beginning a new life in the Free World.

The decision was made, and as soon as we applied for exit visas, my husband and I lost our jobs, […] started to get intimidating visits by KGB agents, and were called “enemies of the state.” Finally, in the summer of 1974 we received our permission to leave, and three of us (our daughter was 5 years old) with only $300 in our pocket (that was the limit) boarded the flight to Vienna.  This was the beginning of our emigration process.  The most difficult part was to leave behind our extended families, as we were not sure if we would ever see them again.

After six months in Rome, we were on a flight to Toronto. At the airport we were met by JIAS staff who provided us some information on where to stay and what to do next.  We had no relatives or friends in Toronto at that time, and assistance by JIAS was instrumental.

Our main goals were to get employment and to make sure that our daughter was provided with Jewish education. With some guidance from JIAS our daughter was enrolled in grade 1 at Bialik Hebrew Day School and very soon became one of the top students in her grade.  Many years later our three granddaughters graduated from Bialik as well. Our dream came true.

Elena and her husband both went on to have successful careers in Canada.  Many years after their immigration, Elena joined the JIAS board and went on to serve the organization for 25 years, serving two terms as a Chair of the Board and helping to implement many important initiatives for the Jewish immigrant community.

Farha family, Syria

In 2014, 13 of our family members (6 adults and 7 kids, aged 4-15) fled the war in Syria and went to Turkey with no idea as to where they would go next.  We desperately wanted to bring our family members to safety but had no idea how to do this.  It was fate when we got the call from a friend connected to Beth Tzedec Congregation, who asked us if we knew any Syrian families needing private sponsorship to come to Canada.

When JIAS advised that they would be able to work with other community groups to sponsor all of our family members, I remember us leaving the meeting with tears rolling down my wife’s face.  She cried the whole way home.

From that day on, we began our relationship with the Jewish community through Beth Tzedec, JIAS and then Oraynu Congregation for Humanistic Judaism, additional sponsors for our family.  When our family members arrived, our bonds became even stronger and since that time, our Ismaili family have participated in High Holiday events and celebrations together with our Jewish family and are all committed to paying it forward. I was fortunate to be invited to join the JIAS board, and I am grateful that I can give back to JIAS and the Jewish community.

Today, two of our nieces are in university, studying what they would not have been able to in Syria.  The remaining kids are in elementary and high school and have experienced graduations, proms and appreciation for the freedom and life that we have here in Canada.

As told by Amyn & Thanaa Sarif

Michele Bismuth, Tunisia

We left because Tunisia became independent. Most of my father’s clients were French and they had all left, so his business was deteriorating. I was 13, it was about a year and a half after my mother passed away.  We really left behind almost everything, we only took four suitcases. He was quite a courageous man to travel with three young teenagers!

My dad chose Manitoba because he had a lot of knowledge of grain.  Grain, but not English! We were not in Winnipeg long when my dad decided we should go back to Tunis.  And then he reflected, he said, well, let’s try Montreal – it’s French.

And Montreal became home. When we first arrived, JIAS put us up with other families who had come from North Africa.  We would all go to a place called The Neighborhood House, on Clark – it was a Jewish community place- to meet and have drinks and cakes or cookies on Sunday afternoons. And that’s where we met some people who I am still friends with until today.

Michele is pictured with her older sister, Elyane, z”l

Miriam Daniels, India

I was born in Mumbai, India, and came to Canada with my parents and three siblings when I was eight years old. We left behind family, friends, and our Jewish community.

Canada is beautiful. We, as children, loved the snow, and the hockey games. There were challenges. We left behind a wealthy lifestyle with servants and started off in Canada with very little. My parents always remembered that they were assisted by JIAS – with furniture, household items, and kosher food. I wish that they were here to share their story and experiences.

We found ourselves a minority within a minority. At that time, Toronto was not as diverse as it is today, and the Jewish community was not as multicultural. We felt different and experienced discrimination, even within the Jewish community. The established community was not accustomed to seeing Jews with brown skin, and did not understand that as Jews from India and we had our own unique Jewish history and culture. We missed being part of a strong Jewish Indian community and the feeling of being included as part of a larger Jewish family.

I built my life in Toronto and found my place in the Jewish community. I have been married to my amazing husband, Joshua, for 30 years and have a wonderful daughter, Ariella Vered. I have worked at UJA Federation of Greater Toronto for over 30 years and have had the opportunity to travel to Israel many times.

Hubert family, Poland/Yugoslavia/Israel

My mother was 9 years old when the Germans invaded Poland.  She, with her parents and her elderly grandmother, was deported to Siberia and made it to Tehran and eventually to British Mandate Palestine.

My father came from a well-to-do family in northeast Yugoslavia. After losing his father to “labour service,” my 13 year old father was smuggled across Europe to neutral Turkey.  His sister and mother were captured and survived time in concentration camps.  Amazingly, the 3 of them were reunited in Palestine after the war.

My parents met as teens in Israel – high school sweethearts who married in their early 20s.  When my father’s uncle in Toronto offered to bring my parents to Canada and enable my father to attend university, they were excited and accepted.

In the years that followed, my parents settled into life in Canada, had their first child (me), and became part of a close circle of Jewish and Israeli friends.  They returned to Israel in their late 20s to be with their aging parents – and in 1967 came back to Toronto with me, a 10 yr old,  and my younger sister.

When I retired in 2017, I approached JIAS to volunteer as a tutor for a newcomer student.  I still remembered what it was like coming back to Canada with my accented English and foreign manners – and after a career as an executive in the energy sector, I wanted to shift gears entirely and help make things a little easier for immigrant kids.

Since then, my volunteer work has included tutoring several students, supporting the various needs of a large Eritrean refugee family, and sponsoring refugees and more newcomers as they continue to arrive in Canada. I have become a bit of an ambassador for JIAS, “roping” in friends to join these efforts.  When I look back at my own family history, I feel good knowing that I am making a difference for people struggling to rebuild their lives in a new country.

As told by Oded Hubert