The poppies that we wear at this time of year are our visual pledge to remember the brave Canadian soldiers who served and sacrificed to preserve and defend our democracy.
Canadian Lieutenant-Colonel John McRae wrote the poem “In Flanders Fields” in 1915 after presiding over the funeral of a friend and fellow soldier. Inspired by this poem, in 1918 American Moina Michael wrote a response called “We Shall Keep the Faith” in which she committed to wear a poppy to remember the soldiers who died in the First World War. Realizing the need to provide financial support to injured soldiers, she decided to sell silk poppies to raise funds for their care.
The idea quickly came to Canada. Ottawa philanthropist Lillian Freiman (whose father was the first Jewish resident of Ottawa) and her group of sewing ladies made Canada’s first poppies in her living room. By 1924, this group was making 3 million poppies each year. Freiman directed Canada’s poppy campaign until her death in 1940.
In 2018, in recognition of all her philanthropic endeavours, the government of Canada unveiled a plaque in memory of Lillian Freiman, designated “Benefactor and Activist”, on the front lawn of the Canadian Army Officers’ Mess at 149 Somerset St. in Ottawa, which had been her home.
Although Freiman was dedicated to many Ottawa and national charities including the Girl Guides, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, the Canadian Women’s Club, the League of Nations Society in Canada and the Sisters of the Joan of Arc Institute of Ottawa, which assisted unwed mothers, she was most deeply committed to the cause of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
In 1919 she became president of the newly formed Hadassah Organization of Canada and at her suggestion it became affiliated with Britain’s Women’s International Zionist Organization rather than American Hadassah. With the rise of Nazism in Europe in the 1930s, Freiman increasingly saw the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine as a matter of life and death. In her last Hadassah address she declared:
“I voice a prayer for world peace. In the midst of a world beset with strife and misunderstanding and mistrust, let us, as Jews, stand united in our work. May our efforts serve as a beacon for peace, mutual tolerance and understanding among people. God grant us the power to point the way.”
When Lillian’s husband Archibald was president of the Zionist Organization of Canada, he was instrumental in financing the purchase of 50,000 dunams of land in the Sharon Valley for the Jewish National Fund. The efforts of Canadian Zionists led by the Freimans to purchase this land are remembered. Chizki (Ezekiel) Sivak, deputy mayor and head of the preservation committee of the Emek Hefer Regional Council said:
“Lillian and AJ Freiman remain in the hearts of the present-day residents of Emek Hefer. Two Emek Hefer villages still carry their names – Moshav Havatzelet HaSharon [havatzelet means lily] and Moshav Bitan Aharon. We are thriving in Israel’s breadbasket and are so grateful to Canadian Jewry for funding this land. We are working with the Freiman family and other Canadians to rename a public square ‘Canada Square’ in 2027, to mark the 100th year anniversary of the 1927 Canadian Zionist organization convention in Winnipeg which pledged $1 million to purchase the land that Emek Hefer sits on today.”
