Tasty lecture in Montreal
Who were the Romanian Jews and why did they come to Canada in such sizeable numbers at the turn of the century? How did they differ from other Jewish immigrants? A particular gastronomic orientation marked Romanian Jews as culturally unique. Join JCarrot’s Lara Rabinovitch (an NYU PhD student, who is currently a fellow of the Concordia Institute for Canadian Jewish Studies) as she traces the early Romanian Jewish immigrant experience in Canada. This talk represents a work in progress for her PhD thesis based on research conducted over the past year at Canadian Jewish Congress Archives, Libraries and Archives Canada, the Jewish Public Library, and other archives in Canada and the United States.
The lecture, “From Mamaliga to Smoked Meat: Montreal’s Romanian Jewish Immigrants, 1900-1939,” will be given Monday, March 10, from 16:30-17:30, at the Concordia Religion Department (2060 Mackay, between Sherbrooke and De Maisonneuve).
My grandfather came from Beserabia and Chisinau which we were told were near Transylvania. Family lore is that my grandfather killed a soldier and escaped to France. He was there for a while and then immigated to the port of New Orleans. He then moved to Houston, was quite the ladies man and married my grandmother whom had just escaped Hitler and whose twin brother was killed in Majanek. My Romanian grandfather was a tailor his whole life.