I have engaged in archival research for over 50 years and enjoy it even though the work is mostly routine: gleaning a small detail from one document, connecting it to another small detail in a second document, and ultimately witnessing the emergence of a significant pattern of small details that changes our perception of history. Usually, the documentary details are more or less expected in advance and reading through minutes of organizational meetings is often monotonous.

On rare occasions, however, the documents yield something completely unexpected and exciting. This happened to me as I was reading through the minutes of the Board of Directors of the United Talmud Torahs in the Jewish Public Library Archives, searching as always for the small details. Turning the page from the English typescript of a 1924 Board meeting discussing plans for a fundraiser—the raffle of a Studebaker automobile--I suddenly came across a couple of pages of Hebrew handwriting that did not “belong” among the minutes and almost certainly had not been seen for over a hundred years.

After a brief examination, I realized that the Hebrew documents were in the handwriting of three of the most famous Orthodox rabbis of a century ago, Rabbi Abraham Isaac ha-Kohen Kook, Chief Rabbi of British Mandate Palestine, Rabbi Moshe Mordecai Epstein, head of the Slobodka Yeshiva and renowned for his Talmudic scholarship, and Rabbi Abraham Duber Kahana Shapiro, Chief Rabbi of Kovno [Kaunas] Lithuania.

What were these rabbis doing in Montreal? They were on a fundraising tour of North America on behalf of the Central Relief Committee, raising funds to rebuild European Orthodox institutions, like Yeshivot, that had been destroyed during the First World War, a task beyond the capabilities of the economically ravaged European communities.

Rav Kook speaking on the balcony of the Montreal yeshiva, 1924. Rav Avraham Dov Baer Kahana Shapiro is on his left, Rav Moshe Mordechai Epstein is to the right. Image reproduced from Joshua Hoffman's “Rav Kook's Mission to America”.

Montreal was on the rabbis’ itinerary, and they arrived in May 1924 to be formally greeted by Montreal Mayor, Charles Duquette, and feted at a dinner which raised $6,000 for their cause. During their stay in Montreal, in an event that did not make banner headlines, they visited the Montreal Yeshiva and wrote down their impressions in the United Talmud Torah ledger book.

Was there really a Yeshiva in Montreal then? The historical memory of the current Montreal Orthodox community does not go back much further than 1941, when a few Lubavitcher refugees from Shanghai, China, arrived in Montreal and immediately founded a yeshiva that came to be known as the Rabbinical College of Canada. But in the pre-World War II period, there were a number of North American yeshiva start-ups. Only a few of them, like New York’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (Yeshiva University), Chicago’s Hebrew Theological College, and Baltimore’s Ner Israel Rabbinical College, were able to beat the long odds against them. Other yeshivas, in Boston, New Haven, Cleveland, and Montreal were established but did not survive.

But in 1924, the Montreal Yeshiva, under the auspices of the United Talmud Torahs, was flourishing and astonishing local observers who found it hard to believe that Talmud learning would be able to attract North American Jewish boys. In this atmosphere of public skepticism the visiting rabbis came to the yeshiva, located on Avenue Henri Julien, and liked what they saw.

Rabbi Kook remarked that the Montreal Yeshiva students he questioned “knew how to respond to questions with reason and knowledge.” Rabbi Epstein praised the yeshiva teachers, who “educate [their students] to dive into the depths of the {Talmudic] argument and to understand with a proper spirit. Despite the shortness of the time that they are able to learn they see the fruits of their labor, and the children are educated with the spirit and the knowledge of our holy Torah.” Rabbi Shapiro wrote that he “tested the students and found that they understood the word of God and could respond properly in their learning.”

These three rabbis were at the top of their profession and headed institutions whose Talmud students functioned at the highest level. It is certain that the Talmud students they encountered at the Montreal Yeshiva were not at a comparable level, but the rabbis understood that the Montreal Yeshiva needed all the encouragement they could give, and their remarks, presumably recorded right after their visit, reflected their desire to help the fledgling Montreal Yeshiva survive.