Rooming house operations gave way to hotel and apartment building ownership. Corner stores grew into wholesalers. After 1930 there were many movie theatres, bowling alleys and restaurants owned by Jewish fmailies. Furniture retailing was dominated by Jewish-run stores. Magazine wholesaling was largely Jewish, as was the steamlaundry industry. Jews owned a major soft-drink plant, a meat packing plant, and several other sizeable businesses.

      Not every Jewish business grew to chain-store status. Well into the 1950's, 8th Avenue E. was lined with Jewish-owned second-hand stores, pawn shops, shoe repair shops, and cheap clothing stores. Owning a neighbourhood grocery store was perhaps the most common Jewish business occupation in the 1940's and 50's.

      The post-war economic boom saw a huge growth of Jewish business enterprise. Jews of the older generation were by now well experienced; their children, matured by military service, added their skills, resources and confidence. Jewish refugees brought their labour and zeal to the business mix.

      The Jews of Sothern Alberta then went well beyond the traditional merchant and craft activities into virtually every business sphere - into petroleum exploration, into construction and commercial realty, into financial services, and into many other fields.

      Jewish men and women, the grandchildren of poor peddlers, tailors and shoemakers, can now be found profitably engaged in the full spectrum of commercial and industrial activities that comprise this area's economic system.