Public shower enclosures was in fact promoted just like the temples so you’re able to morality and public wellness, because they in addition to offered due to the fact collecting places having Toronto’s very early Jewish people. An excerpt in the Ward: Living and you may Death of Toronto’s Basic Immigrant Neighborhood.
I have fond memories of my dad regaling me personally that have reports on the their normal visits with the shvitz, Yiddish to own “steam bath.” I had never seen so it foreign set. However, We knew one to possess your, it actually was a haven about every single day work, someplace he could socialize along with his male family, spruce up and relish the health and fitness benefits from the so it passion.
The fresh new Talmud mentions public baths, which have been an integral part of Jewish traditions for over dos,100 many years. (Brand new old Greeks and you will Romans and additionally patronized shower curtains, once the create progressive Nordic residents.) Thus, of numerous European immigrants exactly who concerned Toronto for the later 19th and you can early twentieth ages got a link with public shower enclosures and shvitzes.