A distinguishing feature of the Jewish experience in Sothern Alberta has been the dominance of self-employment as the major vocation of the early Jewish population.

      Unlike immigrant Jews in Eastern Canada, the Jews of Southern Alberta were rarely factory workers, the sweat shop experience and the labour socialism common elsewhere in the new world never took hold in this area.

      Most immigrants carried on the skills they had learned in Eastern Europe (where Jews werre barred from the professions and the civil service). They were larely small merchants, craftsmen, and entrepreneurs at whatever business opportunites became available to them.

      One had to make a living. There was little public welfare, and those on relief risked deportation. Alberta's cities had few mines, mills or factories at which to earn wages.

      There were families to feed and relatives in Europe to be brought to Canada. Small business, with long hours and family participation, was an imperative for local Jews.

      Calgary's pioneering Jews were largely merchants, many in small confectioneries, groceries and cigar stores. Some early Jews had substantial liquor businesses, shut down with prohibiition in 1920. There were a very few wealthy Jewish merchants, engaged in the lumber trade, grain brokering and theatre management. Those who gave up their homesteads in the Jewish farm colonies became small town or city merchants, or put their farming skills to work as mechanics or saddlers. Some became hide and fur dealers. Other ex-farmers and some urban Jews became cattle dealers.

      In the twenties and thirties there were many businesses serving the Jewish community - bakeries, butchers, even kosher restaurants. Shoe repairing and tailoring were common Jewish occupations. As they acquired language and business skills, the pioneers became clothiers, dry cleaners, sales agents and the like.

      Many early peddler and market stall businesses grew to substantial operations, becoming major general store and farm supply operations and even department stores. Scrap dealers became major metal processors, and some cattle dealers, were able to run large feedlot and ranching operations.