Quebec City: Hip area, Jewish roots

Cities live. Old neighborhoods are transformed and reborn, sometimes maintaining clues to their former inhabitants.

Quartier Saint-Roch, in Quebec City's Lower Town, has a long Jewish tradition and is one of the oldest boroughs in the city.

As businesses migrated to the suburbs in the 1950s, the Jewish neighborhood declined. Today, with an infusion of cash and vision, the Quarter Saint-Roch, with its Jewish roots, is enjoying a revival. The new hip area is detailed in this ShalomLife.com story.

Maurice Pollack, a leading Canadian entrepreneur and Jewish philanthropist, was first to arrive, establishing in 1906 a department store that would become one of Quebec’s top companies.

Other Jewish merchants followed, offering credit and serving a working class clientele.

Prominent Quebec figures such as labour leader Lea Roback and Jewish feminist Sadie Lazarovitz also helped shape the area’s early identity.

The story detailed what to see and do today in the area.

Soak up some Jewish history while strolling along rue Saint-Joseph and rue de la Couronne. In 1910, notary Jacques-Édouard Plamondon gave an anti-Semitic speech at a local church and hoodlums went on a rampage breaking windows in these shops. Two Jewish merchants sued Plamondon for defamation and their 1914 win, known as the Plamondon Case, was amajor victory for Canadian Jews. Today, few signs of this fiery past remain and the area is best known for the peaceful fountains of Saint-Roch garden, the cultural pursuits of Gabrielle-Roy library (site of an outdoor market in 1832) and the leafy plaza at Saint-Roch church, the largest in Quebec City.

Read the complete story at the link above. For more information, click here (for a detailed history of the area, although not mentioning its Jewish connections), here (for information on Quebec City's Jewish families) and here (for the official Quebec City website).

Montreal: Ottawa's Jewish history, Nov. 23

Learn about Ottawa's Jewish community at the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Montreal on Monday, November 23.

Speakers are JGS Ottawa founding president Hymie Reichstein and vice president John Diener.

The meeting begins at 7pm, in association with the Jewish Public Library, and the venue is the Gelber Conference Center, 5151 Cote Ste-Catherine.

For more information on JGS Montreal meetings and Sunday morning family tree workshops, click here.

The site is packed with information, indexes and much more. If you have or had family in the Montreal area, you shouldn't miss this as a resource.

Montreal: Quebec property records, Oct. 20

Many special interest groups, genealogy societies and historical societies have already realized that property and land records are valuable documents. Some of these groups are involved in major projects, such as using such records to reconstruct Eastern European villages.

Closer to home for many Tracing the Tribe readers, the Jewish Genealogical Society of Montreal, in association with the Jewish Public Library, will present "Uncovering Mysteries with Property Records - Hidden Landscapes of Quebec," at the next meeting on Tuesday, October 20.

The presenters will be Gary Shroder and Sharon Callaghan of the Quebec Family History Society (QFHS).

Callaghan has written various articles for genealogical and historical societies across Canada, while Schroder, who has served as president of the QFHS since 1995, is also a member of the Special Advisory Board of Library and Archives Canada.

The meeting begins at 7.30pm in the Gelber Conference Centre, 5151 Cote Ste-Catherine/1 Carré Cummings.

The JGS of Montreal also holds Sunday morning Family Tree Workshops.