Le Château was a fashion fixture across shopping malls in Canada during its heyday in the 1970s and ’80s. Founder Herschel Segal, a Montrealer who recently died, is credited with bringing bell-bottom jeans to the masses—and later helping to launch the David’s Tea brand.
Segal is one of the five prominent Canadian Jewish leaders we’ve lost since this spring, and whose larger-than-life achievements left a clear mark on the community. Today, we honour those men and women with another episode of our recurring podcast series, Honourable Menschen.
Also in today’s show: Larry Robbins, 94, known affectionately as “Zaidy Larry”, was one of the original founders of Toronto real estate development giant Great Gulf Homes. In his later years, he pivoted from putting up private homes to helping young people develop stronger ties with their Jewish identity.
Elly Bollegraaf, of Ottawa, started life as a hidden child in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, before becoming a scientist and well-known Holocaust educator in Canada.
David Attis rose to fame when he took on a notorious Holocaust denier who was a teacher in the school system of Moncton, New Brunswick. And Rabbi Mordechai Feuerstein, 78, spent many years as the spiritual leader of Vancouver’s Orthodox Congregation Schara Tzedeck synagogue, maintaining close ties with the Reform Jews who once shared the building.
For today’s episode of Honourable Menschen on North Star (formerly The CJN Daily), host Ellin Bessner is joined by The CJN’s obituary columnist, Heather Ringel, to share their personal encounters with these prominent community members.
Related links
- Read about the life of philanthropist Larry Robbins.
- How Elly Bollegraaf went from hidden Dutch child to Canadian scientist.
- Rabbi Mordechai Feuerstein of Vancouver built ties between his Orthodox Schara Tzedeck synagogue and local Reform Rabbi Philip Bregman.
- Why Moncton-native David Attis fought against an infamous Holocaust denier.
- Herschel Segal came from Montreal garment industry royalty to found Le Château.
Transcript:
Herschel Segal: I discovered Carnaby Street in England. I discovered the new French styling I discovered things in Italy like sweaters in 20 colors. We were a hit. Then I began opening stores.
Elly Bollegraaf: I know there are still evil people around, and I know there are very good people. I think for mankind to survive, we have to think positively.
Ellin Bessner: The voices of the late Herschel Segal of Montreal and Elly Bollegraaf of Ottawa. He was born before the Second World War, and he went on to found the Le Château fashion stores and also David’s Tea. She was born a decade later in Holland right after the Nazis invaded and began persecuting Jews. She survived the war because of a righteous Christian family who agreed to hide her. Later in Canada, she became a respected Canadian scientist and later a Holocaust educator. Herschel Segal and Elly Bollegraaf are two of the prominent Canadian Jewish community leaders, Honourable Menschen and Women who recently passed away, and whose lives and achievements have left an important mark on the fabric of our country. Literally fabric in Herschel Segal’s case.
I’m Ellin Bessner, and this is what Jewish Canada sounds like for Wednesday, July 2, 2025. Welcome to North Star, a podcast of The Canadian Jewish News and made possible thanks to the generous support of the Ira Gluskin and Maxine Granovsky Gluskin Charitable Foundation.
On this edition of Honourable Menschen, our recurring series where we explore the rich lives of those we’ve recently lost, you’ll hear more about five prominent Jewish Canadians, aside from Herschel Segal and Elly Bollegraaf, we pay tribute to David Attis, a Moncton community leader and actor who fought against a Holocaust-denying teacher and won; former Vancouver Rabbi Mordechai Feuerstein, who built bridges with his fellow Jews from different parts of the religious spectrum, and also Larry Robbins of Toronto, a successful builder who focused much of his philanthropy on ensuring Jewish continuity.
The CJN’s obituary writer, Heather Ringel has interviewed family and friends of our five Honourable Menschen, and she joins me now.
Heather Ringel: Thank you. Great to be here, Ellin.
Ellin Bessner: Well, unfortunately, your job is never-ending. But you do have some fascinating stories to tell us on this edition of Honourable Menschen. Most recently, you’ve been working on the obituary of Herschel Segal, the founder of Le Château. I’m in Montreal as we’re doing the interview, and our listeners might know I’m from Montreal. Growing up in Montreal in the ‘70s and then ‘80s, Le Château was for the coolest of the cool. A person of my generation aspired to shop there, to wear those fashions, and then show them off in the corridors of high school.
Heather Ringel: I also, being of that era, it was just as big in Toronto. And as you said, you aspired to be that cool, to be wearing the fashions. And, you know, I guess that back in the day, before Zara and before H&M, you know, it was very affordable fashion and very trendy. His grandfather had started a big clothing manufacturing business in Montreal, Peerless Clothing. And even today, this business goes on as the largest manufacturer of men’s and boys’ clothing in North America. And they do, I guess, suits.
Ellin Bessner: Yeah, white label or whatever. Exactly.
Heather Ringel: Exactly. Herschel decided not to go into that business. When he came back from the New School, where he kind of finished off his education after McGill in New York, he returned to Montreal and then decided to go out on his own and put his money into starting a clothing store called Le Château.
Ellin Bessner: And here’s Herschel Segal telling a CBC interviewer back in the day how his instincts let him ride the post-war wave of fashion rebellion.
Herschel Segal: Because, you know, the new generation after the war was allowed to be rebellious. They didn’t want the big boxy suits that their parents were wearing. They wanted a uniform for a new age. It was short, it was tight, it was bright, it was unisex, it was revealing. And that was their statement. That they were a new generation.
Heather Ringel: Apparently, it was not so easy getting it off the ground. It was 1959, and the fashion was a little bit out there, considered at the time for kind of conservative Canadians.
Ellin Bessner: And leather. Leather was huge. I remember my Le Château jacket that was like, I don’t even know where it is.
Heather Ringel: And apparently, that was the first thing that really just got him off the ground was the leather. Indeed, the leather. It was a matching leather coat and pants. He was really down to his last, I guess, month or so in terms of being able to keep the store afloat. And he introduced this outfit, and it just sold, got the company going. That was sort of the beginning of the beginning of Le Château. Real trendsetters. Apparently, when Yoko Ono and John Lennon were having their bed-in for peace in Montreal, they sent the bellboy at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel out to buy some clothes. I guess when they finally decided to get out of bed, he went straight for Le Château and picked up a velour pantsuit for both of them.
Ellin Bessner: You mentioned Bellboy. He introduced bell-bottom jeans to Canada. There was a bit of Broigus, as sometimes happens in Jewish families, with large companies. Herschel didn’t become the CEO; he went out on his own. I’m not sure if our listeners will remember the name Alvin Segal, who passed away a couple of years ago. He was the stepson of one of the founders, and he became CEO, so not blood, and there was bad feeling about that at the time. But what else do we know about Herschel Segal and what he moved into in terms of entrepreneurship, besides clothing?
Heather Ringel: So, after Le Château reached its zenith with 123 stores and 3,000 employees, he pivoted into the tea business and founded David’s Tea with his nephew in 2008. There were about 150 stores in Canada and the U.S. They’ve also tweaked their business a little bit since then. He left, or rather he, he still was a major shareholder there. As he became less involved, his daughter Sara took over as CEO, and his wife is still the chairman there.
Ellin Bessner: Again, more Broigus, boardroom Broigus, because David of David’s Tea was ousted from the business. it was then taken over and sold. David is doing his tea business called Firebelly, which we did a story about.
Heather Ringel: It was really nice to hear that he was very supportive of his employees and one of the first businesses in Canada—Le Château—that provided benefits for gay employees and their partners, embracing inclusivity before gay rights were recognized officially by the government. A very interesting guy.
Ellin Bessner: I didn’t know Herschel Segal personally, but I did know David Attis, the late David Attis. For CBC, I was a cub reporter in the Maritimes, and I lived in Moncton, New Brunswick. I don’t know if you remember the case that I’m referring to, the Malcolm Ross Holocaust denial case.
Heather Ringel: I do, I do. Back when antisemitism was still considered a really shocking, shocking thing when there were any incidents or Holocaust denial.
Ellin Bessner: Sadly! Malcolm Ross was teaching at Magnetic Hill High School. You know, Moncton is known for Magnetic Hill. Although he didn’t talk about hatred of Jews or Nazis or deny that Anne Frank’s diary was real, that there was actually never a Holocaust in his own classroom, he wrote a lot of books and gave interviews. So, he was this publisher of Holocaust denial. And David Attis filed a human rights complaint, and the school board told him to get lost. And so, then Malcolm Ross got a famous, infamous pro-Holocaust denier lawyer, Doug Christie, who defended other people of his ilk like James Keegstra and Ernst Zundel in those days. And it went to the Human Rights Commission of New Brunswick. They won. Then Ross was removed from the classroom and given a non-teaching role as a librarian. He appealed and he won at the New Brunswick Court of Appeal. David Attis kept going. He told our contributor Bernie Farber, who wrote a piece of tribute to him in The CJN, “It’s time to mensch up.” And they went to the Supreme Court of Canada, and they won, even though the judges said “Yes. Losing his job infringed on his freedom, but it was reasonable limits because teachers have to be held to a higher standard.” And so, what struck you when you researched him about his really renaissance- man life?
Heather Ringel: Well, that was the interesting thing. I was speaking to a friend of mine who’s from Cape Breton, but he talks about the East Coast mafia. They all knew each other. So many of them moved to Toronto. He said again, David was just a larger-than-life character, very entrepreneurial. He brought kosher wine into the Maritimes, I believe.
Ellin Bessner: And, if you want to watch him, he was an actor in several series, including a movie with James Caan and Genevieve Bujold. So, he did a lot of things, and he’s buried in Belleville.
Moving to the west coast of Canada, now in Vancouver, you were very lucky to learn about the late Vancouver Rabbi Mordechai Feuerstein, who passed away in the United States.
Heather Ringel: So Rabbi Feuerstein was American. He was born in Boston and in his community, he was very well regarded. Before he came to Vancouver, he was the assistant of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, who was a Talmudist and a Jewish philosopher. He did a lot of things. He wasn’t like a secretary. He helped him in writing and in creating things, and he was the first person to have that role. He had a bit of a background in his family. His grandfather was the founder of the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools in Boston in the 1940s. So, he certainly had a lot of involvement in the States. He came to Vancouver in 1984 with his wife, Shayndel, who was a Harvard graduate, and he became the rabbi at Schara Tzedeck Synagogue in Vancouver. He was invited by Rabbi Philip Bregman, who was the rabbi at Temple Shalom, who had just formed the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver, to join him. It was a very small community, and the rabbis wanted to get together and work together. Rabbi Feuerstein was more than happy to join. This included all denominations. In 1985, Temple Shalom, the Reformed Temple, had a Molotov cocktail explode there. The building was destroyed. It burned down. Rabbi Bregman had to find a new place to work, and he was up in the air. Rabbi Feuerstein offered to have him move into Schara Tzedeck.
Ellin Bessner: Wait, a modern Orthodox synagogue invited a Reform rabbi to work there? That’s amazing.
Heather Ringel: Exactly, and he wouldn’t even think of charging him rent. It was amazing. So, the whole community benefited. When Schara Tzedeck refurbished their mikvah, they turned to the community, including Rabbi Bregman’s Temple Shalom, to participate in the fundraising. When the mikvah reopened, it was renamed the Community Mikvah at Schara Tzedeck. Everyone is welcome there. He was just a very kind, inclusive, straightforward man. He hosted Shabbat dinners for everybody. It turned out that at one point, one of the people who he’d had for Shabbat dinner turned out to be someone who ended up on America’s Most Wanted list, which, of course, he didn’t know at the time.
He was passionate about Jewish learning and founded the Maimonides High School, which was the high school in Vancouver. Over the years, it morphed into King David High School, but it would never have even started without his guidance. He just had a lifelong passion for teaching and learning and was a kind, wonderful man.
Ellin Bessner: We’ve got a couple more Honourable Menschen that we must get in. First is one I knew personally, which was Elly Bollegraaf. Our listeners may remember we interviewed her because she was a hidden child during the Holocaust in Holland, and she was about three or four years old and was hidden basically for the whole war. We knew her because she was a great photographer too. So, she would do photos of the veterans, and anytime there was Holocaust Remembrance Day or Jewish war veterans, the photos would be by Elly. One other thing I need to say is she was an amazing letter writer, email writer. She was in her quite senior years, but she would always be emailing us about one story or another, appreciating or asking questions and asking if she could tell her story of her life. I really miss her, one of the people that I got to know as part of this amazing platform that we have.
Heather Ringel: As you said, she was born in Amsterdam in 1940. Her mother was a nurse, and they wouldn’t allow her mother to marry Elly’s father because he was 11 years older than her, and the family was concerned. So, when Elly was born, she was first living with her aunt Johanna until they decided that she needed to move. This was already 1940, and they moved her, just her by herself, out to the country to a small town called Mechlin. She lived with a wonderful family. I know that she had said, and her sister said, that she was the dark-haired one. Everyone looked very Aryan and blonde. Thankfully, there were some slightly sympathetic Germans who told the woman who was hiding her that she should keep her out of view there and keep her in the house because it was quite obvious that she was a little different from the other children. When the war ended, she was reunited with her mother, who, at that time, had actually married with a different gentleman. Elly found out that she now had a younger sister. Elly and her mother, the younger sister, and her stepfather moved to Canada. She kind of left the past behind her or tried to, but then, as she got older, once she got her university degrees and was a scientific researcher, she returned to doing a lot of work with Holocaust education.
Ellin Bessner: One thing that I want our listeners to know is I remember when during the COVID pandemic, a lot of people were writing on social media that they felt like they were Anne Frank, cooped up in the house, not able to go outside. Elly was furious with this because she said this is not like Anne Frank or like I was, where we had no choice. Going outside would be our death. You know, you have a whole big house, and we couldn’t even look out the window, and she was horrified that people would dare to compare the Holocaust to COVID and what she had experienced and others.
Heather Ringel: Her biological father ended up being deported to the Sobibor death camp. She incorporated Dwinger into her name to honour her mother, and her maternal grandparents who were murdered in Auschwitz. Her last research project was to look into Johanna’s background and find the family that had sheltered Johanna during the war. This was up until late last year that she was doing that research. Johanna is going to reunite and meet this family this summer. That’s the plan.
Ellin Bessner: That’s amazing. And where does Johanna live, in Canada?
Heather Ringel: She does, yeah. Johanna’s in Canada now. She’s going to go back to Holland.
Ellin Bessner: That’s an amazing story. We have to cover that. Lastly, we have room for a larger-than-life personality in the Toronto real estate community, but also in the philanthropy community. You can’t drive by a building in the city’s Jewish areas where his name isn’t featured on a wall somewhere, or maybe not featured, but was part of the construction of these buildings all across North America. And that’s Larry Robbins. I want to know if you ever met him or have any connection to things that he has done.
Heather Ringel: I never met Larry Robbins. As you said, larger than life. A very kind and sort of humble man. And he died in Toronto in March. He was 94. He was born here. His wife Miriam’s father, Rabbi Isaac Aronoff, actually had a shul in his own basement. So, Larry became a lot more connected that way.
Most people would know Larry Robbins because he was one of the founders of Great Gulf Homes. Great Gulf Homes started in the 1970s. Today, one of each of the founders has, I think, one child who is involved in the business. I spoke with the son of one of the other founders, Shael Rosenbaum, who told us that there never was a confrontation among the partners. It was an unbelievable group of men who were running the company, Great Gulf, and they really respected Larry. He was the father figure. He held it together. A little bit later in life he became involved in philanthropy. In the early 2000s, Great Gulf restructured. His wife died in 2008. And he really appreciated the education that his son Monty’s children were getting at the time at United Synagogue Day School, USDS in Toronto. He gave them a $4 million donation. The school was then renamed Robbins Hebrew Academy. He did it in honor of his wife Miriam. Then he became involved in Kayla’s Children’s Center, which is for children with disabilities. In fact, earlier this year, he had given a donation to buy Camp Tamarack, which was a big non-Jewish camp before, but now it’s going to be Canada’s only Jewish overnight camp for children with disabilities. He donated a home. It was called Danny’s Place at Chez Larry.
Ellin Bessner: They call him Zadie Larry.
Woman paying tribute at opening ceremony: Ten years ago, we dreamed of building a space that would serve as a youth center and hub for all things related to youth. A center that was the first of its kind, designed by the youth and for the youth. It seems that God liked this idea, so he decided to send us an angel in the form of a Zaidy. A Zaidy by the name of Larry Robbins.
Ellin Bessner When he goes to all these, you know, ribbon cuttings, he wore a baseball cap that said Zaidy Larry. Everyone needs a Zaidy. And I love that image.
Heather Ringel: They said that he was not a flashy man, but he was flashy with his philanthropy. Like, that’s where he wanted to be generous. And he really saw the need and stepped in. He was definitely Zaidy Larry. Really. He’s left a legacy that will continue for a long time in Toronto in terms of the future.
Ellin Bessner: He said, quote, if I can contribute to the continuity of the Jewish people by helping the younger generation find their way together, mingle together, and ultimately set up future Jewish homes and families, I will have made my mark.
Heather, keep up doing the holy great work that you do.
Heather Ringel: Thank you.
Ellin Bessner: And we’ll look forward to our next one, unfortunately.
Heather Ringel: Great to see you.
Ellin Bessner: And that’s what Jewish Canada sounds like for this episode of North Star, made possible thanks to the generous support of the Ira Gluskin and Maxine Granovsky Gluskin Charitable Foundation. Our show is produced by Zachary Judah Kauffman and Andrea Varsany. Our executive producer is Michael Fraiman, and the music is by Bret Higgins. Thanks for listening.
Credits
- Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
- Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
- Music: Bret Higgins
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