Sports and Recreation

During the interwar years, Jews were restricted from joining social clubs, like the Vancouver Club (even though David and Isaac Oppenheimer were among its founders). They were excluded from country club golf courses. Their reaction was to establish their own sports teams.

In the 1960s, restrictions against Jews entering exclusive sports clubs began to be removed. Even with restrictions, Jews have always taken an interest and participated in a variety of sports and physical activities.

Established in 1925, the Hebrew Athletic Club was located in downtown Vancouver at the corner of Robson and Granville Streets. It later moved into the newly built Jewish Community Centre at Oak Street and 11th Avenue. This boys’ basketball team was one of the teams that represented the club and would be the first Jewish team allowed into the Greater Vancouver Sunday School Athletic Association.

Brothers Samuel, Saul and Harris Lechtzier made bowling a popular sport for everyone to enjoy. They introduced five-pin bowling to British Columbia and promoted five and ten-pin bowling leagues at workplaces and in schools. In 1927, the brothers opened La Salle Recreations on Granville Street in Vancouver. It was the first modern bowling centre on the Pacific Coast. Saul Lechtzier was inducted into the bowling section of the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame in 1976.

After the opening of La Salle Recreations, both the Hebrew Athletic Club and the B’nai B’rith Athletic Association established bowling leagues which would eventually merge into one.

Saul Lechtzier’s work as a bowling advocate also helped to make the sport a profitable industry throughout Canada. He established both the Bowling Proprietors’ Association of British Columbia and the Bowling Proprietors’ Association of Canada. In 1959, he pushed for the adoption of a bowling program for BC schools. In addition, he helped to make bowling an accredited sport at the University of British Columbia.

During the 1920s and 30s in Vancouver, bowling and golfing became popular group sports in the Jewish community. Following World War II, interest in golf rose and players began organizing tournaments at public golf courses. However, due to restrictions on Jewish membership at private golf clubs, a committee of Jewish golfers moved to establish their own club.

In 1952, through the sale of memberships, the nine-hole Gleneagles Golf and Country Club was purchased. It took a lot of hard work to convert what was essentially a “cow pasture” into a first-rate golf course with a spacious clubhouse. The first executive included Esmond Lando, as honorary president; Dave Sears, as president; and Myer Brown, as vice-president.

In 1958, the original golf course was sold and work began on a full, 18-hole golf course. The new Richmond Country Club opened its doors in September 1959. Its modern landscaping and layout made it a popular course and it went on to host tournaments such as the B.C. Amateur and Women’s PNGA.

Vicki Berner was only 14 years old when she embarked on a tennis tour of East Canada and the United States. When she returned to Vancouver she had won multiple titles. In 1962, she became the first BC woman to win the British Columbia Junior Claycourts Championship. Berner went on to play at Wimbledon six times and won a gold medal at the Jewish Maccabiah Games. She became a professional tennis player in 1971.

Hy Buller was born in Montreal in 1926. His family moved to Saskatoon a few years later and Buller grew up there playing hockey and skating on outdoor rinks with other neighbourhood children. In 1942, after graduating high school, Buller was spotted by a hockey scout and would play briefly for the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings. However, Buller was still quite inexperienced and he got traded to teams in the somewhat less prestigious American Hockey League (AHL). In 1951, Buller once again entered the NHL, this time playing for the New York Rangers.

During all these years Buller stayed involved in the Jewish community. Interestingly, the New York Rangers even celebrated his Jewish identity in order to appeal to Jewish hockey fans. After performing at a very high level for a number of years, Buller retired from hockey in 1954. He remains one of the most talented Jewish players to have reached the professional level.