Southern Alberta's Jewish pioneers laid the foundation for the area's communal life, but it was the large group of early families - the Jews who came here between the world wars - who consolidated and nourished the Jewish institutions we still enjoy.

      They came from the turmoil of post-war Europe, from other Canadian cities, from prairie farm colonies and towns, even from the United States. And Jewish children, born to families confident in the freedom and bounty of life in the Canadian West, helped double the Jewish population of Alberta between 1918 and 1940.

      During most of the inter-war period, Jews formed about two percent of Calgary's population -- the 1931 census coounted 1,622 Jews in the city of 83,761. Edmonton had 1,057 Jews in 1931, Lethbridge 111, Medicine Hat 104 and Drumheller 44.

      Calgary Jews opened a Hebrew School building in 1929, the I.L. Peretz School in 1929, and began the House of Isreal community building in 1930. They supported a wide variety of active organizations that reflected communal needs and the social and political interests of a diverse populace.