Members of the families who grew up in the former Jewish community of Melfort Saskatchewan met in Winnipeg on June 24 for a dinner at the Viscount Gort Hotel and the next day for a dedication ceremony of the Melfort Torah scroll. This included members from the Vickar, Gurstein ,Rothberg, Rosenberg, Levitt, Springman ,Broudy, Scharfstein ,Goldenberg, Sweiden Schwartzman , and Golumbia families.
The scroll is being housed in perpetuity by the Marion and Ed Vickar Museum of the Jewish Historical Society of Western Canada, and the dedication ceremony took place at the Berney Theatre of the Asper Campus.
The dinner event was organized by David Vickar, a radiologist living in Edmonton, and former resident of Melfort. In his remarks, Vickar indicated that the Beth Israel Synagogue in Melfort which was founded around 1952 and ended up closing in 1986. "The synagogue building was sold, picked up and moved to the outskirts of Prince Albert. It is now used as a wedding chapel, not for Jewish weddings but for other faiths,” he explained.
Vickar pointed out that the Melfort synagogue “may have had 3-4 “sifrei Torah.” He recounted that one scroll was taken by Ed Vickar to Richmond B.C, and one scroll resides in England. Vickar was surprised to learn by reading an article in the Canadian Jewish News in 2021 that a Melfort Torah scroll ended up in the possession of the South Shore Jewish community in Montreal, which kept it for over three decades, until being contacted by David Vickar about the scroll.” The torah is not kosher anymore for ritual purposes, so it was shipped from Montreal to Winnipeg,” it’s final resting place, Vickar stated.
He then outlined how the Gerstein family settled in Melfort before the Vickar family did.( This was of particular interest to this writer as my grandmother’s sister Betty Kosasky married Dave Gurstein. I had not realized the Melfort connection) According to Vickar, in the 1930’s there were 4-5 Jewish farming families in Melfort and by the 1950’s there were some 50 Jewish families.
There were a number of members of the fifteen or so families who came from cities in Canada and the United States to attend the dinner and dedication ceremony.
Winnipeg community leader Larry Vickar paid tribute at the dinner to his Hebrew teacher, Herman Mahlerman, who ran the services in the Melfort synagogue and taught Jewish subjects. Born in Bavaria,Germany, Mahlerman spent 6 weeks in prison for disrespecting the Swastika in 1934.He was smuggled out of Germany, but then was incarcerated in a Belgian Displaced Person Camp. He miraculously survived, and in 1952 eventually moved to Melfort Saskatchewan, some 40 miles from Edenbridge. Mahlerman was the “schochet”, who supervised kosher slaughter as well as being the Hebrew teacher.
Larry recounts that when he was 16 years old and had just got his driver’s licence, one of his first jobs was to drive Mr. Mahlerman to various farmyards, which resulted in their being kosher poultry. Larry Vickar noted. "He instilled in me a curiosity about Judaism and that inspired me.”
Larry added, “I was never a good student. I didn’t enjoy going to cheder after school. But I studied and discussed current events long after my bar-mitzvah with Mahlerman weekly for 5 years in his basement apartment.”
Larry then explained that in 1969, he travelled to Israel for 3 months on Kibbutz Ein Harod Ichud, where Mahlerman had a cousin living. This began “a love affair with the State of Israel and its best product Tova. I care deeply for both of them.”
Although Larry said he speaks broken Hebrew, Mahlerman had him memorize the Shma prayer, "and it has stayed with me to this day.”
Tova Vickar who grew up as the only member of her family on a kibbutz in Israel told the WJR, that she liked Larry because “we both grew up on a farm.” (Larry says, however, technically he grew up in a town, not a farm)
Dick Rothberg, who was the first bar mitzvah boy that Mahlerman taught, in the synagogue in Melfort was present at the dinner.
Elaine Sharfe, the daughter of the late Marion and Ed Vickar noted that after her parents, Mahlerman was “the strongest influence in my life.” Mahlerman , who passed away at age 90 retired in Winnipeg, and was a member of both Temple Shalom and Shaarey Zedek. He enjoyed the academic banter at Temple Shalom but the more formal High Holiday services at Shaarey Zedek. He taught chess, and was a member of Associates of the Ben-Gurion University. He had a keen interest in the opera and attended many cultural events.
Prior to the dedication ceremony of the scroll, there was a screening of a video at the Berney Theatre on June 25 that the Vickar family put together of their visit/re-union at the shul in Edenbridge in the summer of 2023. The video showed a detailed depiction of the Vickar family homestead and is a way of preserving the family history for future generations.
Leslie Emery, cantor of Shaarey Zedek Synagogue who describes herself as a “Torah nerd” spoke about the Melfort Torah scroll.
Emery noted that the expert scribes she had spoken to all agree that the scroll is about 230 years old, and the scroll appears to have been scribed in “Austria, Germany or the Czech Republic.”
”We are not exactly sure where it’s from,” Emery said, “but these are some of the most devastated areas in the Holocaust.”
Emery added, “During the Shoah, so much of Jewish history was lost, so these scrolls which survived in Canada are treasures.”
‘Scribing traditions were lost as scribes were murdered by the Nazis.” Emery indicated.
Emery pointed the parchment of the scroll is dry and has deteriorated and areas of it are damaged, such that it is no longer kosher. However, “it can be studied” by scholars.
Emery reviewed the touching inscription—in Hebrew—at the base of the scroll.” She is a tree of life for those who hold her, from Proverbs 3:18.
Emery also pointed out the fact that the scroll had very long columns, running 60 lines deep. It was written in an era before scribes followed a more standardized format.
Elaine Sharfe said that her parents would have been so happy to know that the Torah which went from Europe to Edenbridge to Melfort to Montreal and now to Winnipeg has found “a final resting place” at the Marian and Ed Vickar Museum at the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada.
“I hope in years to come, when we think of these turbulent times for the Jewish people, we will be buoyed by memory of the past and the promise of the future,” she said.
Harlan Abels, Vice President of the JHC noted that the JHC is a repository for the artifacts related to the Jewish communities of Western Canada and they were delighted to house the Melfort Torah scroll.
David Vickar noted that the dinner and dedication ceremony events were being videotaped such that there could be a record of them for future generations
