{"id":921317,"date":"2026-10-05T09:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T09:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/921317\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T09:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T09:14:11","slug":"this-week-in-history-the-cjn-paid-homage-to-a-beloved-montreal-deli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/921317\/","title":{"rendered":"This week in history: The CJN paid homage to a beloved Montreal deli"},"content":{"rendered":"

Montreal\u2019s famed Jewish deli, Wilensky\u2019s Light Lunch, marked its 40th anniversary the week of October 6, 1972<\/a>. Opened in 1932 on the corner of Clark Street, The CJN\u2019s Quebec bureau chief Mark Medicoff reported that Moe Wilensky\u2019s \u201c40 years of experience at making a unique combination sandwich has never been rivalled anywhere in North America.\u201d (More than 50 years on this remains true: \u201cWilensky specials\u201d are now standard fare at Montreal Jewish weddings.) Moe Wilensky recalled a time when his establishment \u201cwas the kind of place where old men of the area would congregate and gossip about the state of the world and Israel.\u201d Wilensky said \u201cin those days the kids couldn\u2019t afford a ball, so what they would do is take a shmata, and make a ball out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

On the Israel front, The CJN reported that \u201cIsrael\u2019s grandma premier [Golda Meir] plans to retire for well-deserved rest.\u201d Sexist language aside (\u201cOf course, being a lady, Golda Meir may change her mind\u201d), the report lamented her retirement as \u201cshe has led the nation with flair and dignity\u201d and \u201cshe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019t include a single rabbi. Toronto\u2019s rabbis were deeply critical of the survey and \u201cfelt that such a survey here [Toronto] would produce entirely different results.\u201d 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\u2019s methodology and raised questions about how \u201cinfluence\u201d was defined.<\/p>\n

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 \u201ctook time out to address the Toronto chapter of Canadian Friends of Hebrew University.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Montreal\u2019s famed Jewish deli, Wilensky\u2019s Light Lunch, marked its 40th anniversary the week of October 6, 1972. Opened…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":921318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,196806,2338,317221],"class_list":["post-921317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golda-meir","tag-montreal","tag-this-week-in-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=921317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/921318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=921317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=921317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=921317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}