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Chapter 5: That Jewish Gentleman

In his public ministry, Morris had emerged as a singular figure of extraordinary faith. His denomination appeared to be supportive, and he quoted Presbyterian church leaders in his pamphlets. At the annual general assembly meetings each June he was well received and widely admired for his reports. Privately though, Morris and the family coped with numerous aggravations—and many were caused by the church.

Daily, the family had to manage their awkward living quarters above the Mission facilities at 307 Palmerston. These were shared with a deaconess, Miss Caroline McArthur, appointed as Morris’s assistant by the presbytery. The home’s single washroom was barely adequate for a family of six plus one. The unfinished children’s bedrooms were another frustration, especially during the freezing cold of winter. Regular requests for funds to have the rooms completed went unanswered.

No matter how successful Morris was at promoting the ministry, his financial allotment remained fixed, and he wasn’t paid for any extra work. For most of the 1930s, that budget was about $3,250 a year, including all salaries and ministry expenses. In his reports, he occasionally noted that his work had expanded much further than ever—but not his budget. In pre-Depression years he’d received as much as $15,000. It’s no surprise that his complaints fell on deaf ears—almost everyone in the church felt overstretched, underpaid and grateful for their salary.

Since the fracture of the denomination in 1925, Morris had been a steadfast Presbyterian. Loyalty was a trait he valued and tried to foster in others. In 1928, a mission in St. Louis had offered him an attractive leading position. Aware that he couldn’t be replaced, the denomination raised his salary and confirmed their intention to move the Institute’s headquarters to a more appropriate location.

A few years later, his loyalty was quietly tested again. The mission archives include a yellowed piece of correspondence, dated June 21, 1934. It’s a letter to Morris from Sir Leon Levison, president of The International Hebrew Christian Alliance (IHCA). In his day, Levison was something of a living legend; in later years he remained a visionary who admired Morris’s abilities. From the IHCA offices in Edinburgh, Toronto may not have seemed such an important assignment as Levison had in mind. The typed letter mentions a vacancy in the Church of Scotland “station” (mission) in Jaffa, “practically centred at Tel Aviv, the 100 percent new Jewish city in the Holy Land.” Levison wrote,

I feel that in view of the important position which Palestine is going to hold in Jewry throughout the world, and also with the Jews aiming to make Palestine not only their national home, but the centre of Jewish culture, it is imperative to have a Hebrew Christian of education and character as well as of experience to be at the head of the Jewish station.

Levison also reminded Morris about the IHCA’s plans to start a Hebrew Christian colony on a site near Gaza. Urging him to apply immediately—“by return of post”—Levison assured Morris that he would “endeavour to use my very best influence to help you.” He also requested confidentiality, as he knew most of the committee who would make the appointment.

Morris couldn’t respond as Sir Leon requested. Neither his well-hidden colitis nor his family situation (Elaine had been born May 1) made it reasonable. There were more immediate demands on his time and energy. He’d recently returned from the annual general assembly meetings and was busy starting up the summer Fresh Air camp programs. These would bring more responsibilities than usual because Annie—who oversaw much of the program—was looking after a newborn.

Levison had added a postscript in a few handwritten lines: “Would you consider the question of your being appointed General Secretary of the IHCA and work with me in Great Britain? L.L.” We have no record of Morris’s reply. He occasionally travelled to London, but he went on to serve the IHCA as general secretary from 1934 to 1944. That role would take him far afield in attempts to expand the work of the alliance, whose numbers were growing, particularly in Europe. He travelled to Europe, across the United States and Mexico and, on the very eve of the Second World War, to South America. He was returning by ship when war was declared.

Closer to home, Morris’s networking for public support led him in some unexpected directions. In the 1930s he became a member of the Orange Lodge, a Protestant fraternal institution with strong Presbyterian links. The lodge exerted a strong influence on Toronto politics, promoting the interests of conservative politicians and businessmen. Morris became a member of the local John Knox lodge and was elected chaplain and a senior member.

The religious prejudices of the Orange Order against Catholics were by no means hidden. Every year, city lodges celebrated the Battle of the Boyne with a grand parade. The battle (neither important nor decisive) is supposed to mark the defeat of James II, Great Britain’s last Catholic king, and his replacement by the House of Orange. (Similar parades are still held in parts of the former British Commonwealth.) In the mid-1930s, Toronto’s parade was a major event involving many of the city’s leading politicians. As chaplain, Morris was a noticeable dignitary. After the war, the influence of the Orange Order declined, and its religious prejudices were no longer socially acceptable, a change that Morris also welcomed.¹

In recent decades, since Vatican Council II in the 1960s, Torontonians have become used to an increasingly ecumenical spirit between Catholics and most Protestant denominations. The atmosphere of the 1930s was a stark contrast. The differences in theology and practices between Christian denominations were fiercely debated. Some of the earliest religious radio programs featured strongly partisan Catholic and Protestant preachers.

In the biography of his father, Alex Zeidman explains that Morris had a continuing interest in Roman Catholicism, the dominant religion of his native Poland. That curiosity was almost certainly fanned by the anti-Semitism so prevalent in Catholic circles, with its emphasis on blaming the Jewish people for the death of Jesus—that is, all Jews, of every generation. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, these teachings were critically re-examined and rejected by Vatican Council II in 1965. Pope Paul VI declared the views inconsistent with the Scriptures, and they are no longer openly tolerated. (His statement is called Nostra Aetate—“Our Times.” Further progress in relations with the Jewish people has continued since then.)

Commercial radio was still relatively new in Canada in the mid-’30s. The Catholic Hour was broadcast as a Sunday news program for Toronto audiences by an organization called the Catholic Radio League. Programs featured the strong opinions of Father Charles B. Lanphier and were broadcast from St. Michael’s, the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto. Father Lanphier’s views were increasingly controversial with the onset of the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). In keeping with the official views of the church, Lanphier was a staunch supporter of General Franco, who received military support from Hitler and Mussolini. Meanwhile, in April 1937, Canadians were reading the first press reports of the Luftwaffe bombings of civilians in Guernica—a glimpse of the terror to be unleashed on England in the Nazi blitzkrieg.

The medium of radio appealed to Morris’s entrepreneurial personality. While he kept up his busy schedule of public appearances across Southern Ontario, including church pulpits and social clubs, the radio broadcasts reached thousands more and gave voice to his wide-ranging views on theological and topical issues.

Morris launched his own Protestant radio league in 1934 with a series of radio messages, some of them quite controversial. While the league had an advisory council, Morris was responsible for the scripts and presentation. His “subscribers” were only required to indicate their support of the programs, without other obligations. The Protestant Hour caught the attention of Protestants and Catholics alike, and the Mission scrapbooks contain many newspaper columns on the ensuing controversies.

The Telegram, well known for its conservative politics and support of Morris’s ministry, was attacked for promoting anti-Catholic views. In fact, the paper printed numerous letters and articles on both sides of the radio controversies. One particularly lengthy response to the paper’s managing editor suggested that Morris was only one in a series of individuals used by “the Tely” to “attack the Catholics.” The writer noted that his predecessors were at least “of Anglo-Saxon origin…but to bring to the microphone a foreigner is just a bit raw. Don’t you agree? Last Sunday, when I sat listening to your friend, the Jewish gentleman, I felt that Hitler knew what he was doing when he showed the Jews the gate.”² Similar protests reappeared regularly in the paper for the next few months.

Not only was commercial radio in its early stages, so was the Canadian regulatory body that was supposed to maintain order over the airwaves. Government censorship became a problem for Morris, though it often seemed arbitrary. At one point, the issue reached the floor of the House of Commons. J. Earl Lawson, member of Parliament for South York, questioned the minister of transport, C. D. Howe, as to why a message on “the exclusive mediatorship of Jesus Christ between man and God” was not allowed on the air. The minister was pressed to explain “what possible justification there could be for censorship on a sermon of that nature.”³ Another message that Morris prepared on birth control was censored only hours before he was to go on air. Government regulations put limits on Fr. Lanphier as well, and at one point both broadcasters were banned by the federal government.

A few local churches actively supported Morris’s radio ministry, but the local presbytery was noticeably uncomfortable. The raucous tone of the presbytery meeting on February 1st, 1937, was evident in the report of the Toronto Telegram, which opened, “‘God knows we have enough strife in Canada as it is without adding religious squabbles,’ declared Rev. Stuart C. Parker, D.D. of St. Andrew’s Church, yesterday afternoon as he moved to have the question of censorship by the Canadian Radio Commission of radio broadcasts by Rev. Morris Zeidman referred to a special committee of Toronto Presbytery…His motion carried unanimously.”⁴

A month later, Rev. Parker, as head of the investigating committee, presented its report. The committee refused to censure Morris, and some of the comments were positive. They noted that “Mr. Zeidman alone was responsible for the broadcasts and that no newspaper or organization was behind them.” The committee did not correct or criticize the text of his messages. “Those of doctrinal character set forth aspects of the Reformed faith and were orthodox in respect to their substance. Those dealing with current affairs expressed views which might legitimately be held by anyone. Both types, however, were controversial and had in view, first and foremost, the repudiation of Romanist doctrines and attitudes. In style and language, the Committee found Mr. Zeidman ‘did not overstep the bounds regarded as legitimate in such controversy.’” It was neither an endorsement nor a vindication. After all his bluster of the previous meeting, Rev. Parker could give no reasons for a reprimand: “your committee is unable to see any ground for disciplinary action in respect to Mr. Zeidman.”⁵ Although the broadcasts continued, Morris’s regular travel to radio stations around southern Ontario—including Hamilton and St. Catharines—were simply too great a strain on his health to sustain for many more years.

***

While the Depression lingered on, Morris made a pointed and very public stand against Canadians’ refusal to respond to Europe’s growing number of Jewish refugees. The government’s deliberate inaction, so fully evident in the debacle of the St. Louis (a boatload of more than 900 Jewish refugees from Germany who were refused entry to Cuba, numerous South American countries, the U.S. and Canada), was abetted by the silence of Canadian churches and their apathetic response to the spread of anti-Semitism.⁶

“During the last few years,” wrote Morris, “we have had to engage, not only in preaching the Gospel to the Jews, but also in combatting anti-Semitism among Christians.”⁷ As one of the few mainstream Canadian voices boldly supporting the cause of Jewry, he was pointedly confrontational in his writings and speeches, insisting that Christians must show moral leadership and genuine biblical values in their attitudes toward the Jewish people.⁸

The rise of anti-Semitism in a period of international economic turmoil was no coincidence. Extensive propaganda, a lot of it originating with the Nazis, blamed the world’s financial crisis on “an international cabal of Jewish bankers.” Emboldened by the laws against Jews in Germany, groups of Nazi sympathizers became a common sight in some Toronto neighbourhoods.

Mounting tension on the streets led to one of the city’s worst riots, during the summer of 1933. A mid-August series of softball games at the city’s Christie Pits parklands included a team with a large contingent of Jewish players. At one of their games, a blanket with a swastika was openly displayed in the stands. Nothing happened, though the police were warned that any more provocations could be dangerous. The caution was ignored, and the next day, August 16, the offending swastika was unfurled a second time. The team on the field and their supporters rushed the stands. Hours of brutal combat went on late into the evening, described by the Globe and Mail as a “Christian-Jewish pitched battle” along Bloor Street.⁹ The next day’s Toronto Star described the incident:

While groups of Jewish and Gentile youths wielded fists and clubs in a series of violent scraps for possession of a white flag bearing a swastika symbol at Willowvale Park last night, a crowd of more than 10,000 citizens, excited by cries of “Heil Hitler,” became suddenly a disorderly mob and surged wildly about the park and surrounding streets, trying to gain a view of the actual combatants, which soon developed in violence and intensity of racial feeling into one of the worst free-for-alls ever seen in the city. Scores were injured, many requiring medical and hospital attention.¹⁰

Morris’s repeated public statements were confronting the anti-Semitism entrenched in Canada’s leading institutions. Well-known social clubs and hotels were “restricted”—Jews were not allowed. Ottawa’s elite institutions, including the Rideau Club, a renowned haven for its leading politicians and highest ranking civil servants, had a “Christians Only” policy.¹¹ Universities had well-known quotas for the number of Jewish students allowed entry to law and medical schools. Canadians could legally refuse to sell real estate to Jewish people, based on the premise that their property values would be reduced. Those statutes were not struck down by the Supreme Court until 1955, a full decade after thousands of Canadians had died to defeat Nazi Germany.

One of North America’s best-known promoters of anti-Semitism was Rev. Gerald B. Winrod of Wichita, Kansas. When he was invited to speak at a missionary conference at People’s Church in Toronto held in April 1935, Morris organized a peaceful picket line and protest in which many Jews also took part. Morris vocally urged ministry colleagues to see the full consequences of Rev. Winrod’s “Gospel of Hate.”

The time for keeping quiet has passed. They are not only slandering the modern Jew but are besmirching the names of the patriarchs. They are sapping the life of the Church like a canker. If we do not cut that canker out of our Church in America it will be Nazified, like the Church in Germany. No, we cannot remain quiet. If we should, the very stones would cry out.¹²

Despite the widely known terrors of Germany’s persecution of Jews, Canadian church leaders vacillated on taking in Jewish refugees, even when they openly condemned the Nazis. Many Canadians had little understanding or sympathy for Jewry—Europeans or local—while anti-Semites vocally warned that a flood of Jewish immigrants would come and take their jobs. An official rejection of Hitler’s treatment of Jews and other minorities only came with the onset of World War II. By then, the worst years of the Depression were fading into memory. Decades would pass before Canadians recognized their culpability for closing their borders to all but a very few Jewish refugees prior to the Holocaust.¹³

After more than a year of war, the Canadian economy had stabilized. By 1941, there was no lack of jobs or opportunity. Despite uncertainty over the future of Europe, the difficult years of privation had passed. The Zeidmans could look back over a decade of exceptional, if controversial, ministry. Morris was confident that his superiors at the home missions board would finally recognize his achievements. At last, he’d be compensated for his remarkable success, both with the “soup kitchen” ministry and the outreach to Toronto’s Jewish community. Unfortunately, the board did not see things that way.