Meet the Author

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The Talmud Torah P.T.A. Cookbook was written by the community in northern Winnipeg in mid-twentieth century Canada, with two-hundred and sixty-one recipes (spanning nine categories) being provided by ninety-four individuals from ninety families in the area; this cookbook was wellfunded by forty-eight sponsors, including an advertisement paid for by Sunlight dish soap (as seen on page 12).The community came together for this project, organized by The Talmud Torah Parent-Teachers Association member Doris Dollar and in the assumed benefit of the school. 

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This cookbook was published by the Winnipeg Hebrew Free School, also known as The Talmud Torah, Parent-Teacher Association in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Similar to modern-day Catholic Schools, a Talmud Torah is an elementary school for Jewish children, where they learn the fundamentals of Judaism as well as the Scriptures and basic Hebrew. Despite the great deficit in the amount of information available concerning the Talmud Torah Parent-Teachers Association (i.e. P.T.A.), several questions can easily be answered through educated estimates and extrapolation; for example, it is assumed that the reason this particular cookbook was published was as a fundraiser, selling the books through the Synagogue and school to the local Jewish population in Winnipeg. While it is unclear if this is the only cookbook published and sold by the Talmud Torah P.T.A., the special mention of Doris Dollar’s great efforts in the conception and production of the cookbook in the “A Word of Introduction by Rabbi E. Witty indicates that this cookbook was at least the very first of its kind to be published by the P.T.A. since the Winnipeg Talmud Torah was established.

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