Latest statistics of Jews in Western Canada show 20,000 Jews in Winnipege, the metropolis, and an equal number in the rest of Western Canada, which includes the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. Small Jewish settlements in towns and agricultural colonies are scattered throughout this vast region.
Vancouver, metropolis of British Columbia and Canada’s main port on the Pacific Ocean, has the second largest Jewish community in Western Canada, its Jewish population being estimated at about 600 families or 2,500 souls. Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, contains about 40 Jewish families.
Other cities in Western Canada which contain considerable Jewish communities are Calgary, 400 families; Edmonton, 250 families; Regina, 200 families; and Saskatoon, 150 families. Ten percent of the entire Jewish population of Western Canada, or about 4,000 souls, are engaged in farming.
A majority of the Jews of Western Canada is occupied with trading. Winnipeg has a large number of Jewish workers, who are practically all engaged in the needle and building trades.
Jewish settlement in Western Canada is less than a half-century old. Many of the Jews who first came to this section of North America engaged in the heavy physical labor of pioneers, such as building railroads, bridges, roads, sewers and clearing the forests. Some of these pioneers subsequently became wealthy, although there isn’t even today one Jewish millionaire in all Western Canada.
Jewish merchants of Western Canada today, outside of Winnipeg and Vancouver, are suffering from the agricultural crisis, since their prosperity is totally dependent upon the prosperity of the farmer.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
