Dec. 2025
Jen Gilbert

Last year, I lost both of my grandmothers. Their generation is mostly gone now — and with them, a lifetime of stories, that if never told and carried forward, will be lost forever. That would be a tragedy. My ancestors were respected and incredible people, many of whom escaped to Canada from unthinkable persecution, and went on to build meaningful lives. My mom, Susan, and I felt the need to record and share their stories, and recognized that with today’s rise in antisemitism, our need became a responsibility. Thus, the project Proud To Be was born. 

Our goal was to produce a book my mom will give to her grandchildren at the time of their Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. It’s important they understand the struggles and fights for survival their ancestors experienced that allows them the life they have today.

Proud To Be tells my family’s history. My mom compiled the stories and gathered the photographs, and I designed the book, telling the stories through a layout that balances hand-written letters, and archival photographs/documents with storytelling. Working together, we unpacked a century plus worth of stories. We even got caught chasing a story in which two famous rabbis of Slavuta were falsely accused of murder. For years, our Shapiro family grew up hearing about the legacy of these rabbis. Contrary to the belief that they are our ancestors, recent genetic testing revealed they’re not.

How do I begin to share the vast stories of my ancestors? Some are so unbelievable I couldn’t comprehend they’d happened. Months after having heard them, I’m still haunted. Some are so incredible, I’m in awe. Each person’s legacy is powerful, and these stories are a testament to their strength and resilience. I’m grateful I get to share some with you.

A business story
From rags to riches, to the stock market crash of 1929, to receivership, to the great depression of the 1930s, and then back to riches, the Goldblatt family business went full circle. It’s an amazing story!

The Goldblatt legacy started with my great-great grandfather Jacob Goldblatt, a man with a brilliant business mind. Not only did he build an uber-successful family business from nothing, more importantly, he was a pillar of his community, a philanthropist of legendary proportions, and adored by all. He helped everyone — Jewish and non-Jewish — and taught his children to do the same. Many immigrants had him to thank for getting them started in business. 

After the stock market crash of 1929, the Goldblatt family lost everything (at that point Jacob’s sons, Frank and George (my great grandfather), were involved). The people Jacob previously helped came to his rescue and the family started up in business again. They thrived because of their reputation for honesty and integrity. They continued paying it forward. Tzedakah was one of Jacob, Frank and George’s greatest joys. 

Jacob was president of Beth Jacob Synagogue for 25 years.

A rabbi’s story
Hamilton’s history would not have been the same without my great-great grandfather, Samuel Levine, an extremely well-educated and kind man, who was the rabbi for over 40 years at Ohev Zedeck Synagogue (Hess Street Shul). As an aside, the shul’s furnishings are now in Shalom Village’s shul. Samuel was considered the “chief rabbi” of the Southwestern Ontario Jewish communities, presiding over the bet din (Jewish court). He heard countless cases of business, marital, and community disputes. He was a profound thinker, with a way of enlightening people and bringing them to their senses. Impressively, there was no “chief rabbi” before or after Rabbi Levine. He started the Talmud Torah (Hebrew school) in 1911. 

Rabbi Levine did what no other rabbi would — he negotiated with the gangster Rocco Perri. Rocco and his wife, Bessie Starkman, were known as two of the most notorious crime bosses in Canada during the 1920s. After Bessie was murdered, Rocco wanted her buried in a Jewish cemetery. After the negotiation, the Ohev Zedeck congregation ended up with a fully paid, large cemetery property on Upper James Street.

A refugee story
My Rosenfeld ancestors survived multiple pogroms in their shtetl of Pavalitch, Russia, and witnessed members of their family murdered by the Cossacks and Bolsheviks. Life was hard. My great-great grandparents, Benjamin and Maita Rosenfeld, were stepbrother and sister, married out of convenience because the family couldn’t afford a shadchan (matchmaker). 

The family escaped illegally in the dead of night, were arrested on route, and held hostage in a guard shack. Thankfully they were released and crossed the frozen Dniester River undetected, ending up in Romania. 

Incredibly, when I think of the word hero, many of my ancestors are worthy of that label. Benjamin is one of them. After escaping to Romania, and while waiting to immigrate to Canada, he made several trips back home to help others escape. One time, he didn’t return, and his family feared the worst. Several months later, he miraculously appeared!

Rose Shapiro (née Rosenfeld), my great grandmother, worked from the time she was 10; she sewed clothes, first in a Romanian factory, then in a Hamilton factory. She didn’t have the opportunity to attend school, yet was a very smart woman, loved by everyone. A few years after the family settled in Hamilton, Rose contracted tuberculosis. She spent two years in the Mountain Sanitorium, and every day, Maita would cook for her. Maita would walk from her home on Locke St and up the escarpment stairs to deliver the food. 

Benjamin was active in Beth Jacob Synagogue, and a passionate Zionist, raising money for Histadrut in Israel. 

A dreamer’s story
My Shapiro family’s story began in Eastern Europe in the late 1800s with my great-great grandparents, Herschel and Yetta. In Russia, Jews were drafted into the Russian army and given positions where it was unlikely they would survive. Boys were exempt from conscription if they were the only male child in their household. Herschel’s parents had three sons; the youngest son was given up for adoption, and Herschel was sent to Yeshiva in Lemberg, where he met Yetta. Their other son could remain at home. 

Yetta had blonde hair and could pass as a gentile peasant. During the First World War, she saved her family by becoming a smuggler, bartering items like food and tobacco to meet her family’s needs — Herschel and Yetta had five children, including Jack, my great grandfather. 

Jack dreamed of becoming a doctor. Medical school in Lemberg wasn’t an option for Jews, so at age 20, he immigrated to Hamilton in hopes of pursuing his dream. Reality quickly changed his path, as he had no money. He worked hard and saved enough to bring his family to Canada. 

Herschel was the rabbi of B’nai Israel Synagogue in St. Catharines for 25 years. Rabbi Shapiro, as the shochet, could often be found slaughtering his congregants’ chickens behind the shul. 

Jack was a kind man, full of pride, who loved to sing. In Lemberg, he sang in the children’s opera choir. At every Beth Jacob service, his beautiful voice filled the sanctuary. His eyes glistened with tears when he watched his granddaughter walk across the stage at her medical school graduation. She was living his dream.
 

I didn’t get to know Jacob, George, Samuel, Benjamin, Maita, Rose, Herschel, Yetta, or Jack. But it got me thinking: even if you get to know someone, do you really know them? Like so many Holocaust survivors, my grandfather, Sam Gilbert, didn’t talk about his experiences. And it was only near her end of life that my grandmother, Ruth Gilbert, began to share. Neither my parents nor I knew their unbelievable and daring survival stories until recently. 

A survival story x2
Sam did the unthinkable — at least, to me. At 17 years old, he made a daring escape from his shtetl of Nasielsk, Poland, just before the Nazis invaded in 1939. He snuck underneath a train, holding himself up using the rails. Along his survival journey, he hid in forests and sewers; was arrested and thrown in jail, where he bribed the guards for his freedom by doing their tailoring; was deported to Siberia; worked under horrific conditions on the frozen tundra in a labour camp; and miraculously made it to Kyrgyzstan, where he worked in a factory. 

Returning home after the war, a neighbour said to him, “The Germans didn’t kill you, but we will.” He quickly left and ended up in a displaced persons (DP) camp in Austria where he met my grandmother, Ruth, at a Chanukah dance. He was the sole survivor of his family.

From Odessa, as a young girl, Ruth and her family were evacuated by the Russians and sent to Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where she was put in an orphanage. The conditions in the orphanage were grim. Typhus was rampant and took the lives of her father, Sender, and brother. 

After the war, without a husband, and with seven children to feed, Ruth’s mother, Mariam, did what she had to — she made and sold lingerie on the black market. 

Ruth left Odessa at 16 with her older sister, posing as her sister’s daughter. Their journey took them to the DP camp in Austria. 

In Hamilton, at his first job, and without speaking fluent English, Sam became the top salesman at an insurance company, while also working part-time as a tailor. He eventually bought a men’s clothing store on Ottawa St. His drive to provide for his family capitalized on his tailoring skills, the same ones he used to secure his freedom. A full-circle moment! 

I admire my grandparents immensely. Considering what they went through, they loved life and lived to the fullest.

I can’t help but think that these people, shaped by their experiences, helped shape me. I can feel it in my veins; it’s inherent to me. Most of all, I feel it as ambition. To quote Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify: “People talk about multi-generational trauma too much. I don’t think they talk about multi-generational ambition nearly enough.” My ancestors experienced more trauma than I can imagine, and on the other side of that trauma, each person was ambitious. They not only just got by in Canada: they thrived, and never gave up.
 
It makes my mom happy that when I am at the cemetery visiting my grandmothers, I’m honoured to put a stone on the headstones of my ancestors, the people she fondly remembers. Having seen their photographs, I can picture them, and know who they were, and the positive impact they made on their community. I can thank them for always moving forward, and for their bravery that allowed me to be here today. 

I’m proud to share that Proud To Be received an award for the Editorial Design Entire Book/Magazine category from Applied Arts, an organization that has been recognizing outstanding creative excellence in design worldwide since 1992. You can see more pages from the book at JenGilbertDesign.ca. 

I encourage you to start your journey and document your family’s history today — I’d be happy to help! You never know what you’ll discover.

Click here to see mages of the people mentioned in the above story
Jen Gilbert is a graphic designer and can be contacted through JenGilbertDesign.ca.