- Ottawa Jewish Archives
- Ottawa Jewish Historical Society fonds
- Interview with George Marcus
Interview with George Marcus
Description only — contact the archiveO0045
- Held by
- Ottawa Jewish Archives via Canadian Jewish Heritage Network (incl. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives)
- Dates
- May 4, 2004 (indexed as 2004)
- Level
- item
- Scope & content
- Subject: George Marcus Interviewer: Joe Murray Date: May 4, 2004 Location: Ottawa Number of Tapes: 2 Duration: tape 1- 1:00:47 tape 2- 20:42 George came to Ottawa for work. He was in Boston, working at Harvard University, looking at reproductive biology. He applied for and received several honorary grants. He applied to Ottawa because it was fully funded, and got a job in the department of Agriculture, at the animal research center The ARC, at that time was called the Animal Research Institute, was part of the research team in the Department of Agriculture, stationed out of the experimental farm. He worked there from 1975-1994 He was also an adjunct professor at McGill. He has graduate students who did research under his supervision from Carleton and McGill. George was born in Toronto in 1933 His parents are both from Poland. His mother came from a town with a large Jewish population. His father came from Warsaw. His mother left home at 12 years old to go to Warsaw to look for work, selling cloth and dried goods, at a store owned by his paternal grandfather. She had at least 9 siblings, only 2 of them made it to Canada and survived the war. She came to Canada in 1929, with the help of an aunt. His father would write her letters, and in 1930 came to Toronto and they married. In Toronto his mother worked for Mrs. Worth, who had a dress store on Bloor st. His mother left the dress store, and started working at Staford and Squires as a saleswoman. Mrs. Staford was from Ireland. In the late 30s, Mrs. Squires left suddenly, so George’s mother offered to buy into the business as a partner with Mrs. Staford. Together they bought the building on Bloor St in 1940. Mrs. Staford retired and gave her half of the business to George’s mother. In 1941, his parents built an addition to the rear of the store, which they moved into. His sister was born in 1941 In 1953, they moved into a larger house after his brother was born. His father was trained as a cutter in Poland, and he came to Canada and got a job working for a relative at the Royal Knitting Company on Spadina Ave. When his mother took over the business, his father quit his position with the RKC and went to work in the store doing alterations. His father was later part of a group of investors that bought a shopping center in Northern Ontario. George went to Huron St. public school, and went to Talmud Torah. He wanted to go to Harvard collegiate, which was the Jewish highschool in the city, but he ended up at Jarvis because of where he lived. Graduated from Jarvis in 1952. Got a scholarship in a number of subjects, and enrolled at University of Toronto in Honours Sciences, but after the first year he decided to go to Israel, and spent a year there. Then decided to come back and finish his education. He arrived in Israel right after a large political split. He recalls how the political left and right shaped his experience in Israel. George was in Israel as part of a program for young people to visit and work. Recalls the others in his group and the places they went on the trip Recalls interactions with people from across the border. He wanted to enter medicine or science, and that was why he returned to Canada. He got a doctorate in biochemistry at UofT, and then got a postdoctoral fellowship and held that fellowship in Israel for 2 years. The administration at his institute did not approve of the work they were doing, and tried to disrupt their funding. He was unable to obtain promotions, so he left after getting a fellowship from the Rockefeller foundation, and moved to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore After the Rockerfeller fellowship was up, he joined the faculty and obtained a research grant from the National Institution of Health (NIH). After spending 4 years in Baltimore, the entire group was invited to Harvard to set up a new unit in reproduction science. They couldn’t take their research funds with them, and they had to apply for new research funds at Harvard, which was impossible to obtain. *Audio skips* Graduated from university in 1956. It was also the year he got married to his wife, Tibey (?) Zeldon. Her dad owned a butcher shop in Toronto on College St. she had 3 sisters and a brother. She taught Yiddish while George was in graduate school until their son Ellie (?) was born the year after they got married. Their daughter Leora was born in 1960 And in 1961 they moved to Israel where both kids learned Hebrew The kids started school in Israel, and continued going to public schools in the states. Ellie (?) finished school in Boston, and then he went to UofT, while the rest of the family went to Ottawa Leora went to Sir Robert Borden school, while they were living on Higgins St, in the west end Recalls buying a house in Ottawa, and the few friends they knew in the Ottawa and Toronto area. George joined Maziki Hadas after moving to Ottawa. Their house wasn’t near the shul, so they looked and eventually moved. Remembers Harry Rosenburg was president of the shul when he first joined Recalls working at the shul bingo Recalls how he used to smoke and why he stopped in 1985 Recalls a car accident he was in, and how it influenced his popularity in shul Involved in a program in 1980 that was driven by Rabbi Bolka about Jewish education, which eventually became Ottawa Torah Institute (OTI), which started in 1981 George was on the board. When students from outside of town started getting accepted into the Yeshiva, it ruined the reputation. That was eventually reversed and no out of town students were accepted, which helped reverse the reputation. Described a project he knew of, that was designed to rescue Jewish literature. George was also involved in a collection at the library. The council promotes awareness of the collection and finds means of publicizing it through special events. Gives an example of an event for the Dead Sea scrolls displayed at the Canadian Museum of History George has 6 grandchildren. After graduating from UofT, Ellie (?) returned to Israel and joined the army. Left the Kibbutz and moved to Tel Aviv. Ellie (?) became a creative writer and got married in December 1991, after meeting his wife during the first Gulf War. Ellie (?) and his wife Michelle has 2 daughters, Amber and Jade Leora moved to New York after graduating from York University with a degree in Math in 1989. Leora and Daniel Farb got engaged and got married in 1990 at the family shul in Toronto. Leora and Daniel have 4 kids and live in California. Recalls his grandson's bar mitzvah in California. *tape 1 ends* Tape 2 George took an early retirement in 1991, before coming back to work as a consultant until funds ran out. Before he retired, he was working on cloning cows. Discusses his publications and the works he has reviewed. Discusses the difficulty of driving around in Ottawa because of confusing street signs. George enjoys gardening, and built a greenhouse at his house. George also enjoys listening to Opera. He enjoys going to the Opera, and collecting opera CDs. He’s been to the Sydney opera, and the Israel Opera. His brother and law was working temporarily in Australia, in Melbourne. George and his sister went to Melbourne and New Zealand. They were staying in Melbourne before realizing Bondi has a large Jewish population, so they visited to get food. They went to a butcher shop in Australia called Soloman’s, to get food for their trip to New Zealand because they were worried about not being able to find Kosher food. George enjoys traveling and collecting old antique maps of the Holy Land, the oldest being from 1495, and the newest from 1700. George enjoys playing sports, but not watching them. He played baseball, football, taught swimming, water polo, and fencing. He is on the board of the Torah Academy of Ottawa, holding the secretary position Recalls the differences he encountered when he moved from Boston to Ottawa Recalls the 1975 election where the Parti Quebecois got in. A lot of people came to Ottawa from Montreal, and as a result of that Ottawa changed and grew, and it became more metropolitan because of this. George served as a volunteer teacher for 2 years at Torah Academy, teaching Hebrew. *audio ends*
- Location
- University of Toronto · landmark · confidence 60% · landmark:geonames · found as “university of toronto”
- Bloor St · street · confidence 50% · street · found as “Bloor St”
- Spadina Ave · street · confidence 50% · street · found as “Spadina Ave.”
- Huron St · street · confidence 50% · street · found as “Huron St.”
Where
More details
- Extent
- 2 tapes
- Genre / form
- sound recording
- Format
- Audio
- Harvested
- 2026-10-17T20:12:50Z · source datestamp n/a · cjhn