Beryl Chernick

324 Hill Street

My name is Beryl Chernick. This is the building on 324 Hill. So I attended Talmud Torah from the time I started Hebrew school. So what that meant was I would go to Ryerson––because by then we had moved from the neighbourhood––and then at 4:30 I had to be at Hebrew school. So a bunch of us would go from school together on the bus and that would be Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday afternoon and then Sunday morning we would also go for an hour and a half. So I spent a lot of time in that building clearly. [laughs] 

Talmud means learning and Torah is Jewish law. I mean, it means everything not just the actual Torah. It was learning history. It was learning religion, religious beliefs and practices, and you know, life cycle events, and the religious holidays of the year. I only remember celebrations there [laughs] cause -ah- that was the place that we gathered when something was organized to happen like that. There was an auditorium and plays and other kinds of community celebrations and lots of food [laughs] would be happening there. 

So it was our socialization in a group. Cause at school in general we had other friends. And then this was another group of friends, and for me, actually, it must have been quite bonding cause when I was an adolescent we spent practically every Saturday night as a group together. It was a focus for, obviously, lots of joyous things.