• News
    • Business
    • Canada
    • Health
    • International
    • Israel
  • Perspectives
    • Advice
    • Big Ideas
    • CJN Podcast Network
    • Features
    • Opinions
  • Food
  • Culture
    • Arts & Entertainment
    • Books & Authors
    • Russian
    • Sports
    • Travel
  • Events
    • Contests
    • Montreal – About Town
    • Toronto – What’s New
  • Supplements
    • Spotlights
  • En Français
  • Podcasts
  • Subscribe
  • Member Centre
  • Log Out
Search
  • Subscribe
  • Member Centre (eCJN)
  • Log Out
  • Newsletter
  • FaceBook
  • Twitter
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
CJN - Canada’s largest Jewish newspaper
January 21, 2021 - 8 Shvat 5781
CJN - Canada’s largest Jewish newspaper
  • News
    • The race to be the leader of the Conservative Party

      Q & A with Ari Greenwald: Responding to a pandemic

      Israel declares complete coronavirus lockdown on eve of Passover

      Gantz says forming a unity government may take more time

      Students learn computer programming RHA FACEBOOK PHOTO

      Online classes up and running in Vancouver

      AllBusinessCanadaHealthInternationalIsrael
  • Perspectives
    • To our readers: Everything has its season. It is time

      Listen: The CJN Podcast Network, Signing Off

      Healthy Aging: Your next doctor appointment will likely be virtual

      Shinewald: Making this awful moment more tolerable

      Marmur: Israel’s Arab citizens lose out in political shift

      AllAdviceBig IdeasCJN Podcast NetworkFeaturesOpinions
  • Food
    • Delicious desserts for Passover

      Festive food for small seders

      Passover meals for the whole day

      Passover taco Tuesday

      Family Seder recipes

  • Culture
    • How philosophy and theology can be in dialogue together

      Socalled is trying to make the best of his downtime

      Veteran singer returns with ‘toxic’ single

      Stories explore relationships between family, friends

      Jewish movies you should stream while self-isolating

      AllArts & EntertainmentBooks & AuthorsRussianSportsTravel
  • Events
    • CJN VIP

      How’d you like to be a VIP? Giveaway

      Giveaway: The Song of Names advance screenings contest (CLOSED)

      CJN-Prize-new-Entry Ad 2019

      The CJN Prize 2019 (Closed)

      Come celebrate the launch of the CJN Podcast Network

      Jewish Music Week Contest (Closed)

      AllContestsMontreal – About TownToronto – What’s New
  • Supplements
    • Passover Greetings

      Focus-on-Ed-2020

      Focus on Education

      Celebrations-MS-20

      Celebrations

      Hanukkah Greetings

      Celebrations

      AllSpotlights
  • En Français
    • À la mémoire d’un ardent ambassadeur de la culture sépharade, Solly Levy Z.’L.’

      “La haine des Juifs n’a jamais eu de limite”

      Le dossier du Dr. Marcus Fraenkel: la réponse de la CIVS

      Israéliens et Palestiniens luttent ensemble contre le coronavirus

      La lutte contre le coronavirus au Centre médical Sheba de Ramat Gan

  • Podcasts
  • Subscribe
  • Member Centre
  • Log Out
Home News Canada Calgary family celebrates 100 years in Canada
  • News
  • Canada

Calgary family celebrates 100 years in Canada

By
Irena Karshenbaum
-
June 16, 2010
8856
0

CALGARY — An early childhood memory after my family immigrated in 1979 to Calgary from Kharkov, Ukraine (then in the former Soviet Union), is of a little old lady and her husband coming over to our government-subsidized apartment.

The patriarch, Wolf Baer Scwajcer (1847-1924) circa 1920. [Photo courtesy the Jewish Historical Society of Southern Alberta]

My parents were amused by this feisty lady, always “Mrs. Switzer,” who had a very tall husband, Mendle. They also had four large sons (Israel, Albert and twins Henry and Jack). I can still see old Mendle reaching over to give me a quarter after I found the afikoman at a seder in 1980.

When I grew up, I learned that the Switzers were members of a large, extended family that has touched the lives of many.

The seeds of this family were planted in Poland with the birth of Wolf Baer Scwajcer in 1847. He had nine children – Mendel, Mindell, Faiga, Rifka, Sarah, Jacob, Jessie, Bella and Myer – with his first wife, Chaya Leeba, who died in 1884. He then remarried and had two children – Noma and Gershon – with Miriam Rzeczynski who outlived him by six years. She died in 1930.

The same fate would have befallen the Switzers that befell most other Jews who remained in Poland during World War II. But they understood that the escalating anti-Semitism would not end well, and Wolf Baer’s daughter, Bella Singer, and her husband, Abraham, left Poland in 1907.

For a couple of years, they struggled as pedlars in Toronto, and then defeated, returned to Poland. But Bella saw the hopelessness in Poland and convinced her husband to return to Canada, this time settling in booming Calgary in the summer of 1910. This final move triggered a chain migration.

 Bella and Abraham Singer began cleaning rooming houses. They had four children – Hymie, Diane, Jack and Rosalie – and still managed to save enough money to bring over the first of their relatives, 14-year-old Charlie Switzer.

Myer’s granddaughter, Darlene Switzer-Foster, explains: “Every family member Bella would bring over would pay her back and she would use the money to bring over the next person. Every person would then start to save money to bring over their immediate family.”

Using this system, Bella Singer is credited with having brought 300 family members to Canada.

Those early years were filled with hard work. Mostly illiterate, Mendle Switzer, Jacob’s son, was a pedlar, then a cattle dealer, and eventually he and his wife, Rifka (our “Mrs. Switzer”), sold kosher chickens.

At age five, Sam Switzer, Myer’s son, began contributing to his family’s income by selling ice he scavenged from under the trains at the CPR tracks.

By the early 1930s, the Canadian government had adopted a policy that virtually banned immigration of Jews.

R.B. Bennett who had spoken at the ceremony for the laying of the cornerstone of the original House of Jacob in Calgary in 1911, was prime minister from 1930 to 1935 and Opposition leader from 1935 to 1938, but he refused to help the Jewish community.

Only a handful of those who were left in Poland after 1930 survived.

In 1942, Abraham died. Bella lived 42 years more and died at 103. After World War II, she was finally able to bring over her great-nephew, Sucher Cyngiser, Faiga’s grandson.

Bella’s youngest son, Jack, went on to buy Hollywood Center Studios, and his name graces Calgary’s Jack Singer Concert Hall. The little boy who once sold ice, Sam Switzer, went on to build the Elbow River Casino. Jack Switzer has almost single-handedly written the Jewish history of southern Alberta. Edmontonian Daryl Katz (great-grandson of Jessie), assembled a network of pharmacies making him one of the richest people in Canada. He recently bought the Edmonton Oilers.

Today, the Switzer family includes names like Aizenman, Barron, Belzberg, Bronfman, Cohen, Fishman, Groner, Hector, Mendelman, Zysblat and others. At more than 1,700 members, it is believed to be the largest family in Canada.

The family website lists “City Liaisons” in Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Edmonton, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Los Angeles, the United Kingdom and Israel.

Switzer family reunions began in 1990. The next reunion will be held in Calgary on Sunday, July 4. If you are a Switzer, you can register at www.switzer.ca.

 

Irena Karshenbaum
Irena Karshenbaum writes in Calgary. [email protected]

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

A message to our readers with an update:

À la mémoire d’un ardent ambassadeur de la culture sépharade, Solly Levy Z.’L.’

“La haine des Juifs n’a jamais eu de limite”

Subscribe to the CJNSubscribe
RSS FeedView
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Subscribe / Member Centre (eCJN)
  • eCJN Archives
  • Supplements
  • Media Kit
  • Advertising Terms
  • Premiums

75th Anniversary - Liberation of Auschwitz

Ezer Mizion's 2019 Night Shuk

Jeff Golblum conducts O Canada at Fan Expo

  • Canada
  • Israel
  • International
  • Opinions
  • Food
  • Culture
  • En Français
  • CJN Podcast Network
The award-winning Canadian Jewish News (CJN) is Canada’s largest, weekly Jewish newspaper with an audited circulation of nearly 32,000 and read by more than 100,000 people each week.
© 2021 Canadian Jewish News
  • Comments Policy
  • Community Links
  • Contact Us
  • Media Kit
  • Privacy Policy
  • Subscribe
  • Admin