Ken Cossoy

324 Hill Street

 

This is Ken Cossoy. He attended the Talmud Torah, a Jewish religious school, on 342 Hill Street in his youth and in this story he tells us of what he believes was the most significant event to happen there.

The one thing that stands out the most to me would be 1940… 48 when the state of Israel was declared. We met there that night and we had a shortwave radio on that was broadcasting what was going on at the UN with the vote. And that building is where we met to listen to this and be together for it, because it was a very important event in our lives and in the lives of other Jewish people too. Somebody made arrangements because I’m reasonably certain that for London it was not broadcast live to here––maybe it was to Toronto––but we picked it up on a shortwave radio and that’s probably the most important thing that I can remember there. It was more of a social hub than the Cheder. Ah, Cheder was held there and I’m not sure exactly why it was held there as opposed to at the synagogue, it’s just that was the Jewish community centre at the time.

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