Dworkin, Dorothy National Historic Person
Toronto, Ontario
Portrait
© Ontario Jewish Archives, accession #2006-1-2
Address :
100 Yorkville Avenue, Toronto, Ontario
Recognition Statute:
Historic Sites and Monuments Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. H-4)
Designation Date:
2009-04-20
Life Date:
1890 to 1976
Other Name(s):
-
Dworkin, Dorothy
(Designation Name)
Research Report Number:
2008-009
Importance:
Provided health and social services to immigrant Jews, an otherwise marginalized group in Canada
Plaque(s)
DOROTHY DWORKIN
(1890–1976)
A nurse, trained midwife, and entrepreneur, Dorothy Dworkin was deeply involved in health, labour, and charitable organizations. In Toronto, she managed the free Jewish Dispensary and helped found Mount Sinai Hospital in the 1920s, institutions which provided health and social services to Jewish Canadians and employment to physicians who were often denied hospital jobs due to anti-Semitism. During the Holocaust, Dworkin led successful fundraising campaigns for Jewish international relief and, through her family’s steamship agency, she helped hundreds of Eastern European Jews settle in Canada.