Abraham Eisen was worried. It was 1902, only a few years after pogroms swept through his homeland, and across central Europe, there were signs of more trouble for the region’s Jews.
Maybe that was when the merchant and father of six made the wrenching decision to leave the home his family had known for generations, in the hope of finding new opportunity, and safety, in a far-away country called Canada. There, people said, an immigrant willing to work hard and sacrifice could build a safe and prosperous new life for his family.
A century after his death in 1919, the results of Eisen’s hard work and sacrifice were celebrated in Toronto, where 75 of his descendants recently gathered for a first-ever family reunion.
“It was pretty exciting to find that kind of kinship and family with people you don’t know,” said Laura Wolfson, Eisen’s great-granddaughter. “I met all kinds of cousins I hadn’t seen or heard from in 45 years.”
To prepare for the event, Wolfson, her mother, Joy, and a committee of cousins assembled a family tree that stretched over 24 metres, showing the gathered kin where they fit into their legacy.
The effort drew relatives from Denver, Chicago, Boston, Ottawa, Toronto and one who cut short a business trip to Indonesia to attend.
The Eisen family story started in the town of Berezany. In 1902, it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and had been home to a Jewish population for at least 400 years.
Through the turmoil of two world wars and other upheavals, control of the area passed from Austria, to Poland, to the Soviet Union, to an independent Ukraine and now Russia. Its Jewish population was obliterated during the Holocaust.
Born in 1859, Eisen earned his living as a pedlar before deciding to come to North America. He came to Canada around 1902 and his wife, Nettie, and six children followed over the next few years.
Some parts of the Eisen story remain a mystery. For example, great-grandson Lewis Eisen told the gathered clan that no one knows when or where Abraham and Nettie Eisen met and married, or exactly when Eisen arrived in Canada. It is known that Nettie Eisen, who was two years younger than her husband, arrived in 1904 and their children entered Canada at different times through the ports of St. John and Halifax. They settled in Toronto to raise their families. Eisen bought and flipped houses to provide for his brood.
Nettie Eisen died in 1943 and only four of their grandchildren are still alive. That loss of direct connection gave Wolfson and her relatives an added push in their work.
“There was a very palpable sense of purpose to all this,” she said, adding that descendants of five of Eisen’s six children were eventually tracked down. The family of one, who died young, has been lost because his widow remarried and changed her last name.
“Knowing what I am part of helps me to feel grounded. I feel very rich in family,” Wolfson said.
For Lewis Eisen, the event was a chance for relatives to connect to a legacy that many never knew.
“I have no doubt that when Avraham and Nettie left eastern Europe over a century ago, seeking out a better life for themselves and their family in North America, they could not have imagined the legacy they would leave here,” he told the gathering.
Among the family’s contributions to Canada was their son, David Eisen, a physician and a dedicated historian who specialized in the history of Canadian Jewry. His published Diary of a Medical Student provides excellent information about many of Toronto’s Jewish families during the early 1920s.
Another son, Sol Eisen, established the Menorah Society at the University of Toronto in 1917. That was the start of a long history of involvement in the Jewish community that included membership in the Primrose Club, the Island Yacht Club, the Palestine Lodge and the Holy Blossom Brotherhood. He assisted in the formation of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of Toronto, as well as the Canadian Jewish Congress.
Sol Eisen was also an avid collector of Canadiana. His holdings included books, pamphlets and ephemera from across the country. He died in 1974 and left his collection or rare books and other items to the University of Waterloo.
Grandson Abe Eisen was also an obstetrician and gynecologist who’s credited with delivering 30,000 babies over a 43-year career.
Also in the field of medicine, great-great-granddaughter Leah Kesselman has been noted for her ground-breaking work in the fields of stem cell research and gene therapy.
The family has also been active in religious life. Notable names include Rabbi Eliot Baskin of Denver and rabbis Jay and Maury Kelman of Toronto. Rabbi Jay Kelman was the founder of Torah in Motion, along with Wolfson, a noted educator and cantorial soloist at Shaarei Beth El Congregation in Oakville, Ont.
As one cousin declared, “This was so much better than meeting at shivas.”
