Living in Toronto, we are fortunate to have a wide variety of Jewish community events to choose from every week of the year.  From renowned speakers to top tier performers, political figures and inspirational personalities, the community calendar is full with meaningful and moving programs. But how many of them will we remember more than 50 years later?

It was April 28, 1975 when three of my 14-year-old buddies and I sat in the second row of the O’Keefe Centre (now Meridian Hall) for Buddy Hackett’s Salute to Israel.  It was the launch of that year’s Israel Bond Drive which was part of the continent wide Shomer Yisrael (Guardian of Israel) campaign designed to encourage each Jewish family to purchase a $1,000 bond that year.

Each $1,000 minimum bond pledge entitled the buyer to two reserved seats which were assigned in accordance with the date of the pledge........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)