Dorothy Dworkin (née Dorothy Goldstick; 1889 – 13 August 1976) was a Jewish Canadian nurse, businesswoman and philanthropist. She was the first professionally trained nurse in Toronto's Jewish community and among its most prominent healthcare advocates. She led the fundraising campaign for the city's first Jewish hospital and is considered the matriarch of Mount Sinai Hospital. Through her family travel business, she helped thousands of Eastern European Jews immigrate to Canada and escape the Holocaust. She was also the publisher and editor of a Yiddish newspaper and produced a Yiddish radio program. In 2009, she was recognized as a Person of National Historic Significance in Canada.
Early life edit
Dora "Dorothy" Dworkin was born Dvora Goldstick in Ventspils,[a] Latvia, in 1890.[2]: 9 Her parents were Wolf "William" and Sara Goldstick,[b] who had ten children. The family immigrated to Toronto, Canada, in 1904.[4][1]
Health care career and activism edit
In 1907, Dworkin began working at a private dispensary serving Toronto's Jewish community in the historic neighbourhood of The Ward. She was trained there by Dr. S. J. Kaufman and his associates Drs. Sylvester, Patton and Lyon. After about a year she was recommended to Cleveland's Mount Sinai Hospital to study nursing with a specialization in midwifery. She was prepared for the state examination by Dr. J. F. Davidson, a professor at Cleveland University, and in 1909 received her diploma from the Ohio State Medical Board.[1][5][2]: 9–10
On her return to Toronto, Dworkin was placed in charge of a free Jewish dispensary which was the successor to Kaufman's dispensary. It operated daily for about three hours, with the remainder of her time devoted to house calls to deliver babies. Drugs were dispensed by A. B. Hashmall, the first Jewish graduate of the College of Pharmacy, University of Toronto.[1][2]: 10 Following her marriage in 1911, she left this work and the dispensary closed shortly afterwards. However, her close work with the patients and knowledge of the community's requirements impressed her with the need for a Jewish hospital[c] and she began working toward this goal.[1]
Dworkin worked with various women's organizations which provided social services for the immigrant Jewish community, most notably the Ezras Noshem (Yiddish for "ladies' aid"). These groups established an orphanage with a basement dispensary[2]: 12 and the Moshav Zekanim (old folks' home), a forerunner of elder-care teaching hospital Baycrest Health Sciences.[2]: 12, 21, 23 After these successes, Dworkin led the Ezras Noshem fundraising campaign for a Jewish hospital.[7]
The Ezras Noshem purchased a three-story brick building at 100 Yorkville Avenue. Originally constructed as a private residence, it had been operated as the Lynhurst Hospital since 1913. Unable to equip the facility as a general hospital, it was opened as the thirty-bed Toronto Jewish Maternity and Convalescent Hospital in September 1922, to address urgent needs in the community while creating a positive and reassuring setting to gain acceptance amongst immigrants who generally feared hospitals. Dworkin managed and led the daily activities at the hospital.[2]: 23–25, 33
On 17 October 1923, the hospital was renamed Mount Sinai Hospital and registered with the province of Ontario, with Dworkin and three other Ezras Noshem members on its board of directors.[2]: 31 In addition to serving the special needs of Jewish patients, the hospital also provided for Jewish doctors who were often denied employment elsewhere.[2]: 32 As secretary of the board during the Great Depression, Dworkin quietly negotiated with the hospital's creditors while planning for a needed expansion. She convinced fifteen professionals with the hospital to buy thousand-dollar life insurance policies as collateral for a new mortgage, leading to a major hospital expansion[2]: 41, 48 and modernization which was completed in mid-1930s.[8] Dworkin remained president of the hospital auxiliary until 1953, continuing thereafter as a strong advocate for the hospital.[8]
In 1968, the hospital board received approval for construction of a new hospital at 600 University Avenue. Recognized as the hospital matriarch, Dworkin and a group of escorts were paraded from the old hospital to the new site, where Dworkin ceremonially commenced the demolitions.[2]: 131
Business and publishing edit
In 1911, Dworkin married Henry "Harry" (Chanan[1]) Dworkin, a Ukrainian-Canadian[6] Bundist who had co-founded the Toronto Labour Lyceum.[5][4] In 1917, Henry and his brother Edward opened the variety store and travel agency E. & H. Dworkin Steamship and Bankers, with the aim of reuniting families from Eastern Europe who had been separated by the war.[5][9][d]
Dworkin assisted with this business, and the couple travelled to Poland, Romania and Latvia to arrange for the immigration of European Jews to settle in Toronto.[4] This required them to provide travel, banking, legal, vocational and social services.[10][1] Following Henry's death in 1928, Dworkin continued the business as D. Dworkin & Company and later Dworkin Travel.[1][4]
Dworkin helped thousands of European Jews immigrate to Canada and escape the Holocaust, despite discriminatory immigration policies.[6][5] She has been described as a "rainmaker" for her ability to make things happen when other avenues to immigration failed.[10]
In 1935, Toronto's only Yiddish newspaper, Zshurnal, suspended publication due to a dispute amongst its editors. Dworkin and her brother Morris Goldstick used this opportunity to launch the weekly Kanader Naies (Canadian News). It was added as a free insert in the popular weekend editions of New York Yiddish newspapers for which Dworkin was the distributing agent. The paper's editorial view appealed to the major ideological elements of the Toronto Jewish community: pro-Bundist, in the tradition of Dworkin's late husband, and pro-Zionist on the part of Goldstick. The paper was published until 1955[11] and Dworkin's News Agency became Canada's largest distributor for the Yiddish press.[7]
In 1936, following the successful model of the Kanader Naies, Dworkin bought broadcast time on a private radio station for the weekly Jewish Hour entertainment program, hosted by Max Mandel. The program was mainly live musical performances with community announcements, and became a staple of Jewish life in Toronto. Programming was initially in Yiddish, shifting to a Yinglish that came into everyday use in the city's Jewish neighbourhoods. The decline of Yiddish in favour of English brought an end to the newspaper and radio program in the mid-1950s.[10]
Dworkin had served as the president of the Continental Steamship Ticket Agents Association and director of the Labour Lyceum.[4] Dworkin continued running the family business until her death in 1976.[5]
Philanthropy edit
Dworkin led fundraising campaigns for international relief during the Holocaust, was very active with the Jewish Labour Lyceum, was on the boards of several organizations devoted to health, charity and the cause of establishing a Jewish homeland,[6] and was a trustee of the Federation of the Jewish Philanthropies.[5] She was secretary of the Toronto chapter of the Jewish Labor Committee in the mid-1930s and was active with the Canadian Jewish Congress, ORT and Pioneer Women.[1]
Personal life edit
Dworkin married Henry Dworkin in 1911.[5] They had one daughter, Ellen "Honey" Dworkin,[4] born in 1912.[9]
Henry was struck and killed by an automobile in 1928. An estimated 15,000–20,000 people attended his funeral.[4][3]
Legacy edit
On 6 July 2009, on the recommendation of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, Dworkin was designated a Person of National Historic Significance for her unique and enduring contribution to the history of Canada.[7][12]
In 2017, Canadian Jewish News included Dworkin among the 40 most-prominent Jewish Canadians in history.[13]
The hospital at 100 Yorkville was demolished, but the original facade was preserved as the entrance for the Teatro Verde complex. A commemorative plaque created by Heritage Toronto bears a photograph of Dworkin and describes her contributions to the hospital.[14][15]
Foonotes edit
Notes edit
- ^ Ventspils is referred to by its German name, Windau, in sources.[1]
- ^ Sometimes spelled Wolfe and Sarah Goldstick.[3]
- ^ Discriminatory practices at hospitals of the time prevented Jewish professionals from gaining employment. Thus, there were no Yiddish-speakers on staff to communicate with immigrant Jewish patients. Hospitals also refused to cater kosher meals, to allow for observation of Jewish religious practices, and had very limited visiting hours. Additionally, hospitals were frequently a focus for Christian conversion by missionaries.[6][2]: 10 Jewish hospitals, while accepting all patients, sought to provide employment and training opportunities for Jewish doctors and nurses, to provide services in Yiddish, to create a more homey and welcoming atmosphere, and allow for longer visiting hours to permit the mitzvah of bikur cholim (visiting the sick).[2]: 21
- ^ Primarily those separated by the Russian Civil War (1917–1923) when several Eastern European states sought to reassert their sovereignty following the collapse of the Russian Empire.
References edit
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Toronto's first Jewish nurse writes of early Toronto". Bill Gladstone Genealogy. Toronto, Ontario. Archived from the original on 6 March 2019. Retrieved 30 May 2024.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Marrus Barsky, Lesley (1998). From Generation to Generation: A History of Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. p. 32. ISBN 0771010613.
- ^ a b "Dorothy Dworkin". Ontario Jewish Archives. Archived from the original on 2 March 2024. Retrieved 8 June 2024.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Dworkin, Dorothy, 1890–1976". Archeion. Archives Association of Ontario (AAO). Archived from the original on 29 November 2014. Retrieved 5 June 2014.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Dworkin Family". Ontario Jewish Archives. Archived from the original on 29 November 2014. Retrieved 5 June 2014.
- ^ a b c d "News Releases: Dorothy Dworken (1890–1976)". Parks Canada. Archived from the original on 29 November 2014.
- ^ a b c Parks Canada. "Archives - Dorothy Dworkin (1890–1976)". Archived from the original on 8 June 2024. Retrieved 8 June 2024.
- ^ a b "About Dorothy Dworkin". Sinai Health Foundation. Archived from the original on 4 February 2024. Retrieved 8 June 2024.
- ^ a b Atanassova, Katerina (2007). F. H. Varley: Portraits into the Light/Mise en lumière des portraits. Dundurn Press. p. 66. ISBN 9781550026757. Archived from the original on 8 June 2024. Retrieved 8 June 2024 – via Google Books.
- ^ a b c Troper, Harold (2017). "Review: Michael Manel, "The Jewish Hour: The Golden Age of Toronto Yiddish Radio Show and Newspaper"". Canadian Jewish Studies. 25 (1): 204–206. doi:10.25071/1916-0925.40029.
- ^ Kayfetz, Ben (Summer 1982). "Recollections and Experiences with the Jewish Press in Toronto". Polyphony. 4 (1). Multicultural History Society of Ontario: 228–231. Archived from the original on 4 February 2024. Retrieved 8 June 2024.
- ^ Parks Canada (6 July 2009). "Government of Canada celebrates the historical significance of Dorothy Dworkin (1889–1976)" (Press release). Canada Newswire. Archived from the original on 7 October 2012. Retrieved 5 June 2014.
- ^ Gladstone, Bill (28 July 2017). "Dorothy Dworkin: healer of Toronto's Jewish community". Canadian Jewish News. Archived from the original on 25 November 2023. Retrieved 8 June 2024.
- ^ "Mount Sinai Hospital Plaque Ceremony". Ontario Jewish Archives. 19 November 2010. Archived from the original on 25 January 2022. Retrieved 8 June 2024.
- ^ Flavelle, Dana (23 October 1986). "Site of 1st Jewish hospital being demolished". Toronto Star. p. A23. ProQuest 435500810.
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