Hirsch Wolofsky
Hirsch (Harry) Wolofsky (1878–1949), was a Canadian Yiddish author, publisher/editor and business owner. Biography Wolofsky was born in Szydłowiec, Poland, into an Hasidic community. He received a traditional Jewish education until orphaned at 15. Soon after he moved to Łódź, married Sarah Bercovitch, and immigrated to Canada via England in 1900 to join his two brothers, Aaron and Srul Dovid who were already in Montreal. Upon arrival, he opened a fruit store on St. Lawrence Boulevard (a.k.a. The Main). After a fire in 1907, he created the Eagle Publishing Company and started Keneder Adler ("The Canadian Eagle"), Canada's first daily Yiddish newspaper. Until the 1950s, Yiddish was Montreal's third most-spoken language, after English and French. Wolofsky served as the paper's managing editor until his death. The Keneder Adler served an ideologically diverse readership. The paper's focus was on world events, but the editorial staff understood its importance to the neighbourhood so well that they listed births and deaths on the front page. If no deaths were announced in the morning edition, it was referred to as a "clean paper." The paper promoted Jewish education, the establishment of a Canadian Jewish Congress, the creation of a Jewish Community Council (Va'ad Ha'ir),