A recent survey of the Jewish populations in some of the major communities in Ontario done for the United Israel / Jewish Federations of Canada charted the populations in 2001, 2011, and 2021. It showed that there was a steady growth in the number of individuals who identified as Jewish in the Niagara Peninsula. Unfortunately what the statistics fails to account for is the number of Jews who didn’t just identify as Jewish on a census questionnaire but also turned that identity into practice. It is one thing to say one is Jewish, it is another to do things to maintain that Jewish identity. On that scale the number of Jews in Niagara is steadily declining.
Look at these pictures which tell a very different story. The first picture was taken at some point in the late ’30s or early ’40s and shows ALL the children in the Hebrew School and teenagers at some special event, because the rabbi and a couple of the fathers are in the picture. Everyone, of course, is seated not he steps of the synagogue entrance.
The next picture is taken in the early ’60s and shows almost all the kids of a certain age only that were in the choir of the Hebrew School. None of the teenagers or any of the younger children are shown but these are all the sons and daughters at the older end of the baby boom. The picture below it shows only the boys Bar Mitzvah class in the early ’70s with their teacher. This picture would be a true indication of all the kids that were in the various programs of the congregation which included scouts and brownies, Hebrew High School, United Synagogue Youth and more. At the time just a little after this picture, the Hebrew School had 100 students. The last picture shows the total of students in the Hebrew school only a half dozen years ago. They were from essentially three families. What a difference it depicts. At the time of writing this, there are no children in the Hebrew School and that’s at a time when there were over 1000 souls listed in the census as being Jewish. Where did all the children go? (That’s a rhetorical question by the way!)
