Various Positions Read Free Page A

solitudes. St-Urbain was the enclave’s western border, and it ran east to St. Denis, south to Craig and north to Duluth. Jewish immigration became significant only near the end of the nineteenth century; the number of Jews in Montreal more than quadrupled from roughly 16,400 in 1901 to 74,564 in 1911. Most remained traders, commission agents, or manufacturers.
    Lazarus Cohen eschewed the traditional demographics and eventually settled in Westmount. The stone houses reflected those of Mayfair or Belgravia, incorporating Tudor, Gothic, and Rennaisance designs on the same block, occasionally in the same house. It was architecturally, geographically, and spiritually removed from francophone Montreal, from what would later be termed the French Fact.
    In
The Favorite Game
, Cohen underscores the insularity of Westmount by contrasting it with the immigrant character of Montreal and the way the city constantly reminded its inhabitants of their past. The city he writes, perpetuates a “past that happened somewhere else”:
    This past is not preserved in the buildings or monuments, which fall easily to profit, but in the minds of her citizens. The clothes they wear, the jobs they perform are only the disguises of fashion. Each man speaks with his father’s tongue.
    Just as there are no Canadians, there are no Montrealers. Ask a man who he is and he names a race … In Montreal there is no present tense, there is only the past claiming victories.
    ————
    LYON COHEN strongly believed that a knowledge of Jewish history was necessary for self-respect, a belief passed on to his son Nathan and grandson Leonard. Knowledge of the Torah was indispensable, and performing
mitzvot
(good deeds) was essential. Aristocratic and urbane, conciliatory yet pragmatic, Lyon Cohen was a formidable presence in local Jewish life, particularly in the war effort.
    Lyon devoted himself to the recruitment of Jewish men for the armed services and saw two of his own sons, Nathan and Horace, go off to fight in the Royal Montreal Regiment (the third, Lawrence, did not). He was president of a new, national relief body which sent aid to European Jews who had been victimized by the pogroms and he became chairman of the National Executive Committee of the Canadian Jewish Congress, inaugurated in March 1919 in Montreal. His home on Rose-mount Avenue contained books of Jewish learning and proudly displayed a Star of David on the front. He frequently entertained Jewish leaders like Chaim Weizmann, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, and Solomon Schecter. In addition to being scholarly, Lyon was a bit of a dandy; he used an expensive cane, always dressed in the finest suits, and lived comfortably with the assistance of servants.
    In 1906 he organized the Freedman Company, a wholesale clothingmanufacturer, and it became the major business of his sons Nathan and Horace (Lawrence would operate W.R. Cuthbert, a brass and plumbing foundry, taking over from their uncle, Abraham Cohen, who died prematurely at fifty-seven). In the late fifties, Lyon’s grandson Leonard briefly worked at the foundry and in the shipping department of the Freedman Company. In 1919, Lyon organized and became president of the Canadian Export Clothiers Ltd.; later he became president of the Clothing Manufacturers Association of Montreal and a director of the Montreal Life Insurance Company. He was to be presented to the Pope during a European trip in 1924, but the day before the scheduled meeting he had a heart attack. He was taken to a sanatorium in Switzerland, where he recovered. He died on August 15, 1937 and one of the pall bearers at the funeral was liquor magnate Samuel Bronfman. Leonard Cohen was three years old.
    Leonard’s maternal grandfather, Rabbi Solomon Klinitsky-Klein, was a rabbinic scholar. He was known as
Sar ha Dikdook
, the Prince of Grammarians, for writing an encyclopedic guidebook to talmudic interpretations,
A Treasury of Rabbinic Interpretations
, and a dictionary of synonyms and