Respect and remembrance
Two late pillars of Glace Bay’s Jewish community honoured for contributions to former mining town
GLACE BAY — They came to remember two of their own but while doing so ended up celebrating Glace Bay’s once vibrant Jewish community.
On Sunday, about 50 people, mostly from out of town, gathered at the Hebrew cemetery that sits adjacent to the more expansive Greenwood graveyard just off Dominion Street to pay homage to two late Jewish leaders who were equally influential in the wider community of the former mining town.
Those in attendance showed up at the tranquil burial ground to pay homage to Dr. Phil Simon and Elliot (Ellie) Marshall. Simon was a longtime Glace Bay dentist, who before opening his practice in 1950 spent a year as a mobile dentist serving the needs of some of Cape Breton’s more remote areas, including the then lesser travelled Cabot Trail. He passed away in 2001. Marshall was a businessman who ran the family clothing store on Commercial Street until he closed it in 1998 when he moved to Ottawa to be near his daughters. He died in 2017 at the age of 89.
The two men were honoured with the laying of two donated, engraved stone plaques that were laid in a garden next to the uniformed rows of tombstones, etched in both English and Hebrew, that display the names of generations of Jews who called Glace Bay home.
The ceremony was led by Sharon (Shore) Jacobson who told the gathering that Simon and Marshall were dedicated and committed to serving both the town’s Jewish population and the entire community.
“We had, and still have, Phil and Ellie to remind us of who we are,” she said. “This cemetery contains the heart and soul of our community and as we visit never say we have nothing for they have left us with so very much.”
Following the brief ceremony, that included the unveiling of the plaques, the crowd broke up into smaller groups with no one in any apparent rush to get to the Cape Breton Miners’ Museum for a scheduled luncheon.
Mark Simon, son of Dr. Phil, said the occasion made his family’s annual visit home even more special than usual.
“This is huge — we’re all very proud of their contributions and what they meant to Glace Bay’s Jewish community over the years,” said Simon, a Torontoarea dentist who was wearing a Cape Breton tartan skullcap that he had made in New York City. “A big part of this is that they were also very much involved with non-Jewish life in Glace Bay — my father was in organizations like the Rotarians, the Masons and the Police Boys Club, just to name a few.”
Marshall, who was a muchrespected businessman with a big personality, was also known as a pillar of the community. Along with his commitment to the local synagogue, Congregation Sons of Israel, he was also involved in groups such as the United Israel Appeal, the Glace Bay Downtown Development Corp. and the Glace Bay Historical Society.
“These men guided the community through some hard times,” reminisced Jacobson. “They were both so personable and they were both dynamic individuals in their own right — Ellie was Phil’s sidekick, and I remember Phil kind of grooming Ellie to take over.”
The Glace Bay of today is much different from the coal mining town of yesteryear. The abundance of industrial jobs is long gone and the population continues to decline. Especially so for the town’s once thriving Jewish community that built its first synagogue in 1901 and erected a Hebrew school in 1927. And, as was also once the case on Sydney’s Charlotte Street, thriving Jewish businesses were commonplace in downtown Glace Bay.
The Glace Bay shul, or synagogue, was shut down in 2010 by which time there were not enough Jewish men in town to be able to make the 10-man quorum required for Orthodox prayer services.
But Mark Simon, for one, said the legacy of the once-strong Jewish community continues to live on in the memories of people like his father and Ellie Marshall.
“There are many of us who live away, but we still love coming home — this town and the community shaped who we are and we will never forget that,” said Simon, whose five-year-old daughter Ila played an important role in Sunday’s ceremony.
The child was called upon to place some painted stones, collected by her father in Israel, on her grandfather’s plaque.
Following the ceremony and the after-event conversations, those in attendance slowly made their way back to their vehicles that were parked in a circular fashion around the outside of the rows of gravestones.
For Sharon Jacobson, the significance and location of the event proved emotive.
“I have tears in my eyes,” she said, as she gazed at the neat rows of headstones. “There’s more of us in there than there are up here.”
Jacobson then found her way to her car, and the multi-vehicle procession slowly made its way out of the cemetery that was once again left in its well-maintained state of tranquility.