The Story Before the Story: East End Stories
Last week, we took you to Oakridge—a neighbourhood that became one of the centres of Jewish life in Vancouver in the post-war decades.
But that story had a beginning.
Before Oakridge, there was Vancouver’s East End.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jewish newcomers were among the many immigrant communities who made their homes in what we now know as Strathcona. Here, families built businesses, established community organizations, created places to worship and learn, and began laying the foundations of Jewish communal life in Vancouver.
Our online video series East End Stories brings some of that history to life through six short films.
Meet David Oppenheimer, Vancouver’s second mayor, who helped lay essential infrastructure for the young city. Discover entrepreneur and philanthropist Jack Diamond. Follow three generations of the Grossman family and their commitment to community service. And explore the institutions, traditions and acts of tzedakah that helped a new Jewish community take root and grow.
Together, these stories provide a fascinating prequel to the Oakridge story we shared earlier.
Communities don’t simply appear. They are built—family by family, institution by institution, generation by generation.
And as Jewish Vancouver eventually expanded beyond the East End, the community carried those institutions, traditions and commitments with it.
Watch East End Stories
Explore the video series
Help us preserve the stories still waiting to be told.
East End Stories demonstrates what becomes possible when archival photographs, documents, research and community memories are preserved—and then transformed into something that can be shared with thousands of people.
Your support of the Jewish Museum & Archives of BC helps us preserve collections, record oral histories, create exhibitions and educational programs, and bring the stories of Jewish life to communities throughout British Columbia.
Preserving Our Stories. Connecting Our Future.
