Montreal’s famed Jewish deli, Wilensky’s Light Lunch, marked its 40th anniversary the week of October 6, 1972. Opened in 1932 on the corner of Clark Street, The CJN’s Quebec bureau chief Mark Medicoff reported that Moe Wilensky’s “40 years of experience at making a unique combination sandwich has never been rivalled anywhere in North America.” (More than 50 years on this remains true: “Wilensky specials” are now standard fare at Montreal Jewish weddings.) Moe Wilensky recalled a time when his establishment “was the kind of place where old men of the area would congregate and gossip about the state of the world and Israel.” Wilensky said “in those days the kids couldn’t afford a ball, so what they would do is take a shmata, and make a ball out of it.”
On the Israel front, The CJN reported that “Israel’s grandma premier [Golda Meir] plans to retire for well-deserved rest.” Sexist language aside (“Of course, being a lady, Golda Meir may change her mind”), the report lamented her retirement as “she has led the nation with flair and dignity” and “she has not allowed her position as national leader to alienate her from people in whose name she acts and whom she serves, and that, perhaps, is one of the reasons for her deserved popularity, and for the affection the Israelis have for her.”
Meanwhile, the Montreal/Toronto cultural divide was on full display as The CJN reported on a Montreal survey conducted to establish a list of the top 33 Jewish leaders, which didn’t include a single rabbi. Toronto’s rabbis were deeply critical of the survey and “felt that such a survey here [Toronto] would produce entirely different results.” Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut of Holy Blossom Temple, Rabbi Stuart E. Rosenberg of Beth Tzedec Congregation, Rabbi Michael Stroh of Har Zion Temple, and Rabbi Michael Brown of York University all took issue with the survey’s methodology and raised questions about how “influence” was defined.
In Toronto, famed actor Theodore Bikel was in town, starring in the leading role in The Rothschilds (a successful musical which premiered on Broadway in 1970), and “took time out to address the Toronto chapter of Canadian Friends of Hebrew University.”
