After leaving Lebanon in the years following the Beirut port explosion, jewellery designer and gemmologist Peggy Elias began again in Nova Scotia. Her journey is personal, but it also belongs to a much older Halifax story, one written by generations of immigrants who arrived, rebuilt and contributed to the city they came to call home.
On September 26, the doors at 1470 Lower Water Street will open for an evening of jewellery, gemstones and celebration.
It is the grand opening of JM Gems Boutique by Peggy.
For someone walking past the new downtown Halifax boutique, the story might begin there: diamonds, gold, coloured gemstones, custom designs, and a professional gemmologist at work.
But Peggy Elias’s story began long before Lower Water Street.
It began in another corner of the globe, in Beirut.
And in an unexpected way, the two cities have something profound in common.
A Life Built Around Precious Stones
Jewellery was already Peggy’s profession long before Nova Scotia became home.
She built her career in Lebanon as a jewellery designer and gemmologist. JM Gems operated from 87 Sursock Street in Achrafieh, one of Beirut’s historic and most chic neighbourhoods.
Today, Peggy has nearly three decades of experience in the jewellery industry. She is a Graduate Gemmologist of HRD Antwerp and a member of the Canadian Accredited Jewellery Appraisers and Canadian Jewellers Association. At JM Gems, she personally designs pieces and conducts jewellery appraisals.
For Peggy, jewellery was never simply something to sell.
A piece can mark a marriage. It can come from a mother or grandmother. It can cross borders inside a suitcase. It can survive people, houses and sometimes even countries.
That idea would eventually take on a deeper meaning in Peggy’s own life.
August 4, 2020
On August 4, 2020, Beirut changed.
An enormous explosion ripped through the city’s port. More than 200 people ultimately lost their lives. More than 6,000 were injured. Hundreds of thousands were displaced from their homes.
The historic neighbourhoods close to the port suffered extraordinary damage. UNESCO documented extensive destruction across the surrounding historic and cultural districts.
Peggy’s own memories of that day, and exactly how it changed the course of her life, are a part of this story that only she can tell.
What is known is what followed.
Peggy eventually left Lebanon and made her way to Nova Scotia.
She would have to establish herself again.
Not as a young woman discovering her profession for the first time, but as an experienced professional carrying years of knowledge into a country where her reputation had to be built anew.
Peggy brought with her something no border could take away: her training, her eye for design, her knowledge of gemstones, her relationship with jewellery and craftsmanship, and, most importantly, almost three decades of experience.
There is also something moving about the geography of Peggy’s journey.
She came from a harbour city scarred by an explosion to another harbour city whose collective memory also contains destruction, loss and reconstruction.
And she came to a city that understands something else about rebuilding.
Halifax has been built and rebuilt by newcomers for generations.
Peggy Arrived Recently. The Lebanese Community Did Not.
Lebanese roots in Halifax stretch back more than 130 years.
The Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 traces one of the city’s best-known Lebanese migration stories to Abraham Arab, who came from the northern Lebanese village of Diman and settled in Nova Scotia in 1894.
More followed.
The story continued.
Those families were once the newcomers.
Today, many are inseparable from Nova Scotia.
That matters when considering Peggy’s story.
Immigration is often viewed only at the moment of arrival. We notice the newcomer learning a city, looking for work or opening a small business.
History allows us to see what happens next.
Old Immigrants. New Immigrants. The Same City.
Halifax is experiencing another period of immigration and demographic change.
According to the 2021 Census, 50,590 immigrants lived in the Halifax Regional Municipality, representing 11.6 percent of the population living in private households. Nearly half of those immigrants had arrived between 2011 and 2021.
But Halifax’s own history shows why newcomers should not be judged only by where they are on the day they arrive.
The newcomer of today will become part of the institution, company or community that helps define Halifax a generation from now.
Lebanese, Canadian and Part of the Community
Peggy’s relationship with her Lebanese identity did not end when she left Lebanon.
JM Gems has publicly described itself as a Lebanese-Canadian business, including when it supported the Lebanese Film Festival in Canada in Halifax.
That involvement matters.
Successful integration does not require someone to erase where they came from.
Quite the opposite.
Cities become culturally richer when newcomers participate in their new communities while also sharing something of their own. Food, music, film, art, entrepreneurship and traditions travel with people.
Peggy can be part of Halifax without Beirut becoming less important to her.
Lebanese and Canadian identities do not have to compete.
They can coexist.
Rebuilding JM Gems
In October 2023, JM Gems Ltd. began operating as a Nova Scotia company.
Three years later, Peggy is taking another step.
The new downtown boutique gives JM Gems a home at 1470 Lower Water Street, close to the Halifax waterfront.
Inside, Peggy is bringing together the different parts of a career she developed over decades.
There is custom jewellery and design. Peggy personally creates JM Gems designs and oversees the process from the original idea through to the finished piece.
There is gemmology.
And there is professional jewellery appraisal.
JM Gems now performs appraisals in-house. Jewellery remains at the boutique during the process. The Halifax location uses equipment including a GIA microscope and spectrometer for gemstone examination and identification. Appraisals can be prepared for insurance, estate and other valuation purposes.
The technical qualifications matter.
But jewellery is also intensely personal.
A good jeweller has to understand both sides of an object: what it is worth and why it can be priceless.
That intersection between science, craftsmanship and human attachment is where Peggy has built her profession.
A Door Opens on Lower Water Street
On Saturday, September 26, Peggy will welcome her invitees to the grand opening of JM Gems Boutique from 4 to 9 p.m.
There will be fine jewellery and gemstones.
But there will also be a story behind them.
A story that began in Beirut and continues in Halifax.
Now Peggy is adding something of her own to the city she calls home.
And that is how cities are built.
Not once.
But generation after generation.
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