A shaken minority wonders what’s next |
Jack Frieberg in Toronto on December 18, 2025.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
Jack Frieberg’s parents were Holocaust survivors.
Louis and Gerda Frieberg came to Toronto in the 1950s to start a new life in the New World. He worked as a carpenter, she as a seamstress, making 70 cents a dress in a Spadina Avenue sweatshop. As Toronto boomed in the postwar years, they saw an opportunity and started a construction company.
In time, their son Jack co-founded a firm of his own that turned old warehouses and factories into brick-and-beam offices. Like his parents, he prospered. Today, at 69, he has four grown children. Two work in real estate, two in tech. They have given him 10 grandchildren, aged one to 15.
On Wednesday evening, he had family and friends over to observe Hanukkah and light a candle on two beautiful menorahs. Yet, even as he celebrates, Mr. Frieberg wonders: Is this the end?
Canada was good to his mother, who came to love the country that took her in. It has been good to him and to his children. But is it still safe for them?
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