Sunday, February 11, 2007

The D'ancona family of Toronto Canada; Unlikely Hassidic powerbrokers

The D'anconas are an Old Italian Jewish family, members of which settled in Toronto, Canada and became followers of the Hassidic Bobov sect.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is funny !

You mean they are full-fledged Bobovers, wearing shtreimel, etc. on Shabbos or holding only associate membership (for non-shtreimel wearers) ?

Any sources for this or did you just hear it 'through the grapevine' ?

Joels W. said...

I have heard about this family from close friends in Toronto when I was last there.

Yes, they are full fledged Bobover Chassidim with everyhting that comes with it.

This is indeed quite a novelty because Italkim themselves are a rare and tiny breed and Chassidic Italkim are unheard of (!) (though there are plenty of Chassidim these days of Sephardic descent, something that was unheard of untill fairly recently).

Alex Schindler said...

there are also many Syrian d'anconas (usually just named ancona actually), came from italy in the 18th century. i had an economics professor in hunter college named ancona, whom i have seen at safra synagogue and at shearith israel around central park.

Joels W. said...

Thanks Alex, interesting stuff!

Yehudha said...

Ancona had a Levantine and a Portuguese community as well, it is likely they are of Sephardic rather than Italqi descent. But as is usually the case with toponyms, they can be completely unrelated families. One of the last Hakhamim of the Amsterdam community was Jacob d'Ancona, and the family also produced a famous dutch politician and a famous TV personality

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