Jess Abelson was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1892 to Wolf and Julia Abelson. His parents, both immigrants from Lithuania, settled with their young family in Ottawa in the early 1900s. 

Jess was the second born of Wolf and Julia’s 7 children. From a young age it was clear he had an aptitude for sports.  

Jess played football “flying wing” for the Ottawa Rough Riders from 1910 until the outbreak of the First World War. Around this time he also captained the Men’s YMCA Basketball team, leading them to victory in the championships in 1913 and 1914. 

In 1915, Jess enlisted in the US Navy and was put on the Navy football team until he was given an honourable discharge.

After the war in 1918, Jess’s attention turned to community service. He founded the 39th Scout Troop - one of Canada’s first Jewish Scout Troops-,  turned to coaching and managing the Ottawa Shamrock’s Jr. Hockey team, and managed and owned the Ottawa Strathcona’s Softball team. The softball team’s popularity brought in crowds of 8,000 people and in 1931 and 1932 they won the Canadian Championship.

In the mid-1930s, Jess and others in the Jewish community began to discuss finding a solution for accessing tennis courts in the city. While Ottawa had a number of tennis clubs, Jews were prohibited from memberships due to antisemetic rules. Jess and a few others worked to raise funds to purchase a tennis club for the Jewish community. He was able to purchase the old Rideau Tennis Club which had 8 courts, a clubhouse, and a canteen and opened the Tel Aviv Tennis Club. Jess Abelson wanted the club to be as accessible as possible so he refused to ask the Vaad Ha’Ir (also known as the Ottawa Jewish Community Council) for financial support so the club could be open on the weekends. In 1946, the Tel Aviv Tennis Club had 194 members; 100 men and 94 women. The club was a popular social scene for the Jewish community; it is because of this that Jess Abelson fought for an outwardly Jewish name for the club so it could be a space for Jews of Ottawa to interact. One of Jess’s most proud accomplishments was the 200 marriages that resulted from the club. 

Jess Abelson passed away in 1975. 11 years later, in 1986, Jess became the first inductee in the Ottawa Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.