Siegel, Ida Lewis

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SIEGEL, IDA LEWIS

SIEGEL, IDA LEWIS (1895–1982), community worker, feminist, public official. Ida Lewis Siegel was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, shortly after her parents and two older brothers arrived from Lithuania. In 1893 her family moved again, this time to Toronto. Yiddish-speaking Ida devoted much of her life to bettering the lot of immigrants in Toronto, especially Jewish immigrants targeted by Christian missionaries in Toronto. In order to help immigrants both integrate and retain pride in their cultural and religious heritage, Ida organized, while still a teenager, programs to assist immigrant women learn mothercraft, English, and modern hygiene. It was the beginning of an almost 80-year career of pubic service.

Ida married Isidore Siegel, a traveling salesman and later shopkeeper, and they had six children. With her husband's support, and uncharacteristic of her times, Ida juggled home and community as she immersed herself in an array of community-based activities benefiting Jews and non-Jews alike. An ardent Zionist, she founded the Daughters of Zion, the first Zionist women's group in Canada, and in 1916 was a key organizer of Canadian Hadassah. She was also an early supporter of *Youth Aliyah. A lifelong pacifist, she opposed Canadian participation in World War i and, committed to public education, she helped organize the Home and School Association and was an activist on behalf of children's playgrounds and child welfare. She helped organize the local ym-ywha, a Jewish medical dispensary – a preliminary step in the founding of the Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto – and a Zionist Sunday school. A committed suffragette, she campaigned for the women's vote and, once achieved, pressed women both to exercise their ballot and run for public office. Living by example, in 1930 she was elected to the Toronto Board of Education in a largely Jewish neighborhood. She served until 1936 when she unsuccessfully ran for a seat on Toronto's city council, defeated, some argue, by voter uneasiness about electing a woman and a lack of support from Jewish political insiders, who felt a seasoned lawyer would more effectively represent Jewish interests. Undaunted, Ida Siegel went on to become the first woman vice president of the Zionist Organization of Canada and a member of the executive of the Canadian Jewish Congress. She was widely honored in both the Jewish and larger community.