Remembering Toronto’s Hadassah Bazaar

Growing up in Toronto, the last Wednesday of October was always a special day for me. It was the day of the annual Hadassah-WIZO Bazaar in the Automotive Building on the Canadian National Exhibition grounds.

For 84 years, the bazaar raised significant funds for Hadassah, the Jewish women’s charitable organization that benefitted children and women and advanced healthcare in Israel. The brainchild of Rose Dunkelman (who was also the founder of the Balfour Beach cottage community one hour north of Toronto) the fundraiser was first held in 1924 and it grew to be a beloved Toronto institution billed as the “largest one-day bazaar in the world.”

Shoppers lined up starting at 3 a.m. to scoop the best bargains. Hadassah volunteers (sometimes three generations together) ran the booths to serve the customers (in some years more than 10,000 in a single day). The idea of a mammoth bazaar spread from Toronto to other cities including Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver, London, Kingston and Kitchener.

The last Toronto bazaar was held in 2008. It couldn’t compete with outlet malls and dollar stores, and a 2002 tax change that ended the practice of issuing tax receipts for merchandise donated for one-day sales.

Although the bazaar is gone, the memories remain.

It was the perfect place for me to buy an orange checked suit and a velvet tuxedo to take to camp the next summer. At the end of my last summer at Camp Ramah in Canada in 1984, all my “bazaar wear” of over 20 bizarre suits and complementary weird hats and ties were left to the drama department and used as costumes for Hebrew-language Broadway shows for decades.

I bought sports memorabilia (it wasn’t memorabilia at the time, it was new) generously donated by the Levy family who owned CCM, including a Team Canada 1974 hockey stick autographed by Paul Henderson. I came home one year with Pat Boone’s golf shoes from a celebrity auction (cost: $5).  I bought other things I didn’t need, like a plastic keychain with my name engraved on it in Hebrew.

Like many children of Hadassah women, I volunteered on bazaar day and helped with set up the night before. This is my badge.

The energy of everyone who planned the bazaar and worked so hard to make it happen, every single year, inspires me to this day.

The precious memories of the bazaar remain, as do some of my purchases. I still have that Paul Henderson signed stick and, of course, still use the Hebrew “Mutley” keychain.

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For more treasures from the Herzl and Zionism Collection of David Matlow which appears weekly in the Canadian Jewish News see  https://herzlcollection.com/treasure-trove