May 27, 2019

Introduction Jews started coming to the Canadian West in the 1880s for the same reasons as other immigrants: to escape religious persecution in their European homelands, and for the promise of vast tracts of cheap land. More specific Jewish reasons for immigration were to escape pogroms in Russia, or to avoid conscription into the Russian […]

Edmonton, Alberta was first incorporated as a town in 1892. At that time, there were about 700 permanent residents. Founded on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River on the site of the former Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Edmonton, it soon began to attract a growing populace. Abraham and Rebecca Cristall, Edmonton’s first Jews, arrived