Ralph Benmergui visits the opening of Margaret’s Legacy, a new Holocaust education centre in Hamilton, Ontario

Canadian Jewish News Feature Article by Ralph Benmergui

(full story can be read on the CJN website)

May 3, 2024

Ralph Benmergui at the opening of Margaret's Legacy on May 2, 2024.

It’s a sunny and warm Thursday downtown in my city, where sandwiched between a paint store and the brick-and-mortar home of a sports app on Main Street is a place called JHamilton.

The Hamilton Jewish Federation hasn’t always lived here, though. And like much in this community, it’s had its share of ups and downs. But ever since CEO Gustavo Rymberg arrived seven years ago, it’s mostly felt on the upswing.

So, my city is now in the ideal position to appreciate Margaret’s Legacy.

That’s the name of the new local Holocaust centre, which not only about preserving memory, it’s also here to advocate for Jewish heritage in Hamilton—a place with a fascinating history of its own.

Home to Canada’s first Reform congregation, it also has active Orthodox and Conservative synagogues, serving around 5,000 souls living in Steeltown.

Torontonians particularly know this place had an image problem to overcome. And being known as the hate-crime capital of Canada means antisemitism still bubbles right beneath the surface in a city of a half-million.

The opening of Margaret’s Legacy is part of a proactive effort to change that, primarily through the sponsorship of the family of Margaret and Arthur Weisz, who survived the Holocaust—they reunited when she wrote his name on a package of bread thrown over the fence of a Russian prison camp in Central Hungary—to arrive in Hamilton with a small suitcase and a baby named Tommy.

Arthur founded the property management company Effort Trust, which he headed until his death in 2013, four years after the passing of Margaret.

Click here to finish reading this article at the Canadian Jewish News