In 1912, a young black man left Grenada in a quest for learning. His voyage led him to Canada and conversion to Judaism.
“May you be written in the book of life in the New Year,” says the greeting in Yiddish on the back of a photograph of a black man in a broad-brimmed hat (see picture on cover).
That man, Emerson Swift Mahon, Canada’s first black Jew, sent the picture with a brief letter to Rabbi Herman Abramowitz of the Shaar Hashomayim Synagogue in Montreal.
The letter, dated Nov. 16, 1921, is one of many treasures discovered in the Allan Raymond Collection housed at the Jewish Public Library Archives of Montreal. Raymond, a historical lecturer, retired from the insurance business to devote his time to the study and collection of Canadian and Canadian-Judaic history. Written in English and Hebrew, the letter is a fascinating glimpse of this remarkable man.
“It is to be regretted that I have neglected my study of Hebrew,” Mahon wrote from Winnipeg to the rabbi. “What with the busy whirl of life...I had almost forgotten the saying of the sage.”
That saying is written in Hebrew. “Whoso forgets one word of his study, him the scripture regards as if he had forfeited his life.”
To be black and Jewish in Canada nearly 100 years ago was both unique and challenging. To be also literate in Hebrew and Yiddish was an indication of an unusual and determined personality.
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