JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

In 1928, a second congregation was started in the basement
of the Talmud Torah building, which in 1932 became the
Conservative Beth Shalom Congregation and engaged Rabbi
Jacob Eisen, who became one of the first English-speaking
rabbis west of Winnipeg. Also at that time, the Peretz or New
Yiddish School was organized and opened its own building.
An offshoot of the Arbeiter Ring, which started in Edmonton
in 1922, it had its heyday in the early 1930s, but had to close in
1939 due to declining enrollment. By 1941, Edmonton’s population
had increased to 93,817, and the Jewish population
stood at 1,449. Of the 120 men and women from Edmonton’s
Jewish community who served during World War II, 11 were
killed in action.
The postwar years saw rapid growth in both the Jewish
and general population of Edmonton. With prosperity and
a shift by Jews into the city’s West End, a new Beth Shalom
Synagogue was built in 1951. A new Beth Israel Synagogue
building was also constructed as well as a new Talmud Torah
building. In 1954, the Edmonton Jewish Community Council
was formed as a community-wide umbrella organization and
served as such for 28 years. On September 20, 1982, the Community
Council merged with the Edmonton United Jewish
Appeal to become the Jewish Federation of Edmonton.
Alberta’s booming oil-based economy brought increased
immigration to Edmonton including that of Jews from other
provinces in Canada, as well as from Hungary, Russia, and
South Africa. From a Jewish population of 1,748 in 1951, the
community grew to 2,910 in 1971 and 5,430 in 1991. In 2001 it
stood at about 6,000.
All these new immigrants contributed to Edmonton’s
vibrant Jewish community life. Local branches of prominent
Jewish organizations thrive, including the Canadian Zionist
Federation, Edmonton Hadassah-WIZO, chapters of ORT and
Na’amat, B’nai B’rith and Emunah, all of which are actively
working for the welfare of the State of Israel. Local offices of
the Jewish National Fund are located at the Edmonton Jewish
Community Centre, founded in 1970. The now defunct
Edmonton chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women
was responsible for founding the city’s Jewish Seniors’ Dropin
Centre (formerly the Golden Age Club) in 1954, as well as
Jewish Family Services.
The community’s third congregation, Temple Beth Ora
Reform Congregation, was founded in 1979, and incorporated
in 1980. It rented space at the Jewish Community Centre. In
1996 Congregation Beth Tzedec, a breakaway from Beth Shalom,
incorporated and began to hold services at the Talmud
Torah. Chabad Lubavitch arrived in Edmonton in 1991, and
in 1993 a second Hebrew day school, the Orthodox Menorah
Academy, was founded. In 1999, a new building for Edmonton
Talmud Torah was erected and the next year a new Beth
Israel Synagogue was opened reflecting a further westward
shift in population.
In the fall of 2004, Edmonton elected its first Jewish
mayor, Stephen Mandel. Mandel had previously served as a
city councilor, continuing a long tradition of Jewish city coun-
edom
cilors, including Dr. Morris Weinlos, Helen Paull, Mel Binder,
Tooker Gomberg, and former MLA Karen Leibovici. There has
also been a strong tradition of Jewish civic involvement in the
larger Edmonton community, with members serving on the
boards and executives of many local arts, cultural, educational,
and fundraising organizations, as well as on the judiciary.
The Jewish Archives and Historical Society of Edmonton
and Northern Alberta (JAHSENA) was founded in 1996
to preserve and promote the history of this vibrant Jewish
community.
Bibliography: U. Rosenzweig (ed.), The First Century of Jewish
Life in Edmonton and Northern Alberta, 1893–1993 (2000).
[Debby Shoctor and Ed Mickelson (2nd ed.)]
EDOM (Heb. םֹ ודֱ א), a land in the south of eastern Transjordan,
the southeastern neighbor of Palestine.
The Country
“The land of Edom” is the most common name for the Edomite
territory. It had, however, other names and appellations, both
prosaic and poetic, i.e., “the field of Edom” (Judg. 5:4), “Seir”
(ibid.), “Mount Seir” (Deut. 1:2), “the land of Seir” (Gen. 36:30,
“the lands of Seir,” cf. mâtātid še-e-ri k i, in el-Amarna letter no.
288, line 26; Pritchard, Texts, 488; J.A. Knudtzon, Die El-Amarna-Tafeln,
2 (1915), 1340), and a combined name, “the land of
Seir the field of Edom” (Gen. 32:3). There are also in Egyptian
sources the equivalents of two names: Seir (Pritchard, Texts,
262) and Edom (Papyrus Anastasi VI, Pritchard, Texts, 259). It
is possible to establish, according to the Egyptian and Akkadian
sources, that the name Seir is chronologically first, since
it is mentioned at the beginning of the 14th century B.C.E. in
the Tell el-Amarna document, as well as in an Egyptian list
from the time of Ramses II, i.e., from the first half of the 13th
century B.C.E. On the other hand, the first mention of the
name Edom in Egyptian sources occurs only at the end of
the 13th century B.C.E.
The name Seir is apparently related to the Horites; this is
especially evidenced by Genesis 36:20: “These were the sons of
Seir the Horite, who were settled in the land” (cf. Deut. 2:12).
The name Edom is related to the Western Semitic settlers who
came after them.
It appears that the Edomite territory consisted of the
mountain which extends from the Dead Sea in the north to
the Red Sea in the south. The northern border of Edom was
the Zered River (Wadi al-Hesa), which was also the southern
border of Moab (Deut. 2:13). Its eastern border was the desert
and its inhabitants were the Kedemites. Its southern border
was Elath and Ezion-Geber (Deut. 2:8), i.e., the gulf of Elath.
There was probably no fixed western boundary; during the
Exodus from Egypt, the Israelites who requested permission
to pass through Edom said to the king of Edom: “Now we are
in *Kadesh, the town on the border of your territory” (Num.
20:16). Another place mentioned as being on its western border
is “Mount Hor on the boundary of the land of Edom”
(Num. 20:23). The western border is described more compre-
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