Canadian-Yiddish poet and writer Ida Maze (1893-1963) is nowadays best remembered for the informal literary gatherings she hosted in her family home on Ave. de l’Esplanade in Montreal. Of her central role within her community, Canadian poet Miriam Waddington writes: “To these artists […] Mrs. Maze was the eternal mother – the foodgiver and nourisher, the listener and solacer, the mediator between them and the world […] She gave herself entirely and attentively to the poem; she fed the spiritual hunger and yearning of these oddly assorted Yiddish writers whenever they needed her.”
If you wish to learn more about Ida Maze, I highly recommend this beautiful mini-documentary produced by the Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project. Directed by Christa Whitney and Emily Felder.
For more on the history of Yiddish Montreal, I also recommend Rebecca Margolis’ Jewish Roots, Canadian Soil: Yiddish Cultural Life in Montreal, 1905-1945.
