3: Sammy Luftspring, Growing Up In The Market
82 Nassau Street
Meet Sammy Luftspring, the champion boxer and hometown hero who grew up in Kensington Market. Learn about Sammy’s Jewish pride in the face of antisemitism in Toronto and how this impacted his youth and career.
Running Time: 5 minutes
Archival Collection
Learn more about photographs sourced for this video from the OJA’s collection.
Sammy Luftspring at fourteen years old in 1930. Two years later he began competing in boxing matches. He was a skilled fighter and always showed off his Jewish pride wearing a Magen David on his boxing shorts.
OJA, item 2516.
Sammy Luftspring aboard the SS Alaunia on route to the 1936 People’s Olympics in Barcelona. The People’s Olympics were planned as a protest event against the 1936 Summer Olympics taking place in Berlin, Germany during the period of Nazi rule. However, the People’s Olympics were cancelled right when they were to begin, due to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.
OJA, fonds 82, item 12.
Portrait of the Luftspring family at the Ostrovzter Synagogue on Cecil Street to mark the marriage of Max Lightstone and Goldie Grossman on 9 June 1922. In the top-left corner Sammy has indicated that his younger brother Sydney was not born yet. In the bottom right corner, Sammy annotated the photo with an arrow pointing to himself, “That’s me. I’m 5 years old.”
OJA, fonds 82, item 1.
Wedding photograph of Elsie and Sammy Luftspring taken on 6 November 1938 at the McCaul Street Synagogue (Beth Hamidrash Hagadol). Three-hundred-and-fifty people attended his wedding, and hundreds waited outside of the synagogue to see the newlyweds.
OJA, fonds 82, item 20.
Sammy Luftspring and Benjamin Norman “Baby Yack” Yakubowitz in a casual boxing match aboard the SS Alaunia on route to the People’s Olympics in Barcelona in 1936. As an amateur bantamweight boxer Norman “Baby Yack” won over ninety of one hundred fights. Later in 1936, he turned professional and became the fourth ranked bantamweight in the world.
OJA, fonds 82, item 15.
Sammy Luftspring refereeing a fight between George Chuvalo, a Canadian professional boxer and heavyweight champion, and Jimmy Ellis, an American professional boxer. The fight took place on 10 May 1971 at Maple Leaf Gardens.
OJA, fonds 82, item 30.
Sammy Luftspring with his father, Yossel Luftspring, outside of the family home on Nassau Street, in 1937.
OJA, fonds 82, item 18.