Adath Israel Congregation (Toronto)

Adath Israel Congregation stands at 37 Southbourne Avenue in North York, near Bathurst Street and Highway 401.[5] The synagogue is affiliated with Conservative Judaism and reports a membership of roughly 1,400 families.[1][4]

Morning and evening services are held on Sundays, weekdays, and Shabbat, with Kabbalat Shabbat also offered; services are livestreamed for people unable to attend in person.[6] Congregants and guests are invited to Kiddush after Shabbat services and to breakfast following the morning minyan.[6]

Nearly 3,000 Jews entered Canada in 1899, including 2,202 immigrants from Romania.[7] Adath Israel was organized in 1902 by 20 men from different parts of Romania who wanted services conducted in the manner to which they had been accustomed.[3] The congregation's history describes social gatherings among Romanian-born Jews developing into a desire to pray together on the High Holy Days. After obtaining a Sefer Torah, the group met in a synagogue room and later in rented rooms above a Turkish bath and a grocery store.[4]

The congregation's history treats 1903 as its formal beginning, when increased membership led to the election of its first president and secretary. It also says that cemetery land was acquired on Roselawn Avenue that year and that two cottages on Centre Avenue subsequently served as the congregation's home until 1911.[4] A 1926 account gives a different chronology, reporting that a 500-seat synagogue was erected at 48–50 Centre Avenue in 1910 and that Mr. and Mrs. B. Hashmall laid its cornerstone.[3] The congregation's history says that a building on Bathurst Street near Dundas Street was dedicated in 1911 and that the institution was officially known for three decades as the First Roumanian Hebrew Congregation Adath Israel, or popularly as "The Roumainishe Shul."[4]

A Ladies' Auxiliary was formed in 1924, and its members established a Sunday School on February 1, 1925, with 75 children attending the first session.[3] A new synagogue home was dedicated in 1957 with facilities for worship, education, social functions, and congregational activities. Continued growth led to a substantial addition in 1965 that included the "Rabbi Erwin Schild Wing."[4]

The congregation reports that it had approximately 150 member families when Rabbi Erwin Schild arrived in 1947 and has since grown to roughly 1,400 families.[4] Separately, a 1954 Canadian Jewish Congress study lists an Adath Israel synagogue at 557 Bathurst Street in Census Tract 57. The tract had 6,287 residents in 1951, including 3,427 Jews, or 54.51 percent of its population.[8] The study does not establish how the listed synagogue relates institutionally to the present North York congregation.

Rabbi Abraham Kelman served as the synagogue's first full-time rabbi from 1939 to 1947. Rabbi Erwin Schild, newly ordained by Toronto's Yeshivah Torath Chaim, was engaged in September 1947 and led Adath Israel for more than four decades.[4]

Rabbi Steven Saltzman succeeded Rabbi Schild when Schild retired from the pulpit in 1989 and served until his death in September 2014. Rabbi David C. Seed was hired in 2003, and Rabbi Moshe Meirovich served as interim rabbi in 2015. Rabbi Adam Cutler became spiritual leader in March 2018, becoming the first Toronto-born rabbi to lead the congregation.[4] The congregation's current clergy listing names Rabbi Adam Cutler as Senior Rabbi and Rabbis Nava and Yerach Meiersdorf as Associate Rabbis.[9]

Adath Israel describes its programming as spanning religious, social, educational, and age-specific aspects of communal life.[4] Its named groups include the Brotherhood, Women of Adath, and Club L'Chayim for congregants aged 55 and older, alongside a Chesed Committee and programs for young families, teenagers, and young adults.[4]

The synagogue's main sanctuary has 944 seats and a balcony accommodating another 226 worshippers. Ten stained-glass windows surround the sanctuary. The smaller Donnenfield Chapel seats 90 people and can accommodate up to 160 when additional chairs are installed.[5]

A dedicated memorial alcove displays a Holocaust memorial Torah from the Rousinov Synagogue in the Czech Republic.[10] The scroll is on loan from London's Memorial Scrolls Trust, which holds 1,564 scrolls saved from Jewish communities in Bohemia and Moravia.[10]

An Adath Israel Synagogue cemetery section, designated Section 27, is located at Bathurst Lawn Memorial Park, 6033 Bathurst Street, on the west side of Haifa Way. The JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry records 323 burials and 305 photographs for the section.[11] The park's land was purchased in the early 1930s by the Ivansker Mutual Benefit Society. Forty-five synagogues and societies initially acquired cemetery segments, and later transfers brought the total to 55 separate cemeteries by 2007.[11]

In September 2026, Adath Israel Congregation hosted a mayoral forum on antisemitism and public safety organized by Jewish Lawyers of Canada.[12] Mayoral candidates Brad Bradford and Chris Alexander participated, while incumbent Toronto mayor Olivia Chow did not attend.[12] Bradford publicly commented on her absence.[13]

Sources differ on the congregation's earliest institutional history. The congregation's history treats 1903 as its formal beginning, while a 1926 account says it was organized in 1902.[4][3] JewishGen also labels an Adath Israel congregation as founded in 1902.[14] The Jewish Virtual Library, however, associates Beth Jacob—described as also known as the Poylishe Shul and Rumanian Synagogue or Adath Israel—with 1889.[2] The sources do not clarify whether this entry refers to the same institution, an earlier stage of its development, or a different congregation.

The documentary record also leaves questions about institutional continuity between locations. The 1926 account places the congregation at 48–50 Centre Avenue, while the Canadian Jewish Congress study lists an Adath Israel synagogue at 557 Bathurst Street.[3][8] These sources do not explain the transition or independently establish the relationship between those institutions and the current congregation in North York.