Adath Israel (Montreal)

Contemporary sources identify the organization at different levels of geographic precision. My Jewish Learning lists Adath Israel Poale Zedek Anshei Ozeroff as a Quebec partner of its Hub for Jewish Online Events, while a 2024 Jerusalem Post report associates the full congregational name with the Montreal area.[5][1]

Earlier records use shorter names. JewishGen lists “Adath Israel (Outremont)” as a synagogue in the Island of Montreal suburb, with its database coverage extending from April 28, 1938, through December 30, 1942.[6] A 1955 study places Adath Israel and the affiliated Adath Israel Academy & Hebrew School at 1540 Ducharme Street in Outremont.[3] These records document the use of the Adath Israel name in Montreal, but they do not by themselves establish an uninterrupted institutional history connecting every historical designation with the contemporary congregation.

Historian Ira Robinson writes that in 1907 a group of immigrant Orthodox congregations united in an organization called Adath Israel and hired Rabbi Simon Glazer. Glazer had come from Lithuania and had previously served congregations in Sioux City, Iowa, and Toledo, Ohio. Robinson presents Glazer and Yiddish newspaper publisher Hirsch Wolofsky as rivals for leadership within Montreal’s growing Jewish community.[2]

According to Robinson’s account, Glazer arrived at the invitation of the United Orthodox Congregations and claimed the office of chief rabbi of Montreal and, his detractors alleged, of the Dominion of Canada. The claimed authority encompassed ten cattle slaughterers, fifteen chicken slaughterers, and thirty-eight kosher butchers and was reported by the Montreal Star on August 28, 1907.[2] Meldola De Sola of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, Herman Abramowitz of Shaar Hashomayim, and Lazarus Cohen, president of Shaar Hashomayim, organized opposition to Glazer’s claims and efforts to regulate the kosher-meat industry.[2]

Robinson states that Glazer’s opponents selected Rabbi Hirsch Cohen as a leader recognizable to the largely Eastern European immigrant population. Cohen had arrived in Montreal in 1890 and later studied kosher slaughter in Chicago. Supported by established communal leaders and Wolofsky’s Keneder Odler, Cohen became Montreal’s de facto chief rabbi, while Glazer’s side circulated its views mainly through handbills and circulars.[2]

Glazer left Montreal for Seattle in 1918, apparently discouraged by opposition from the communal establishment. The United Hebrew Congregations selected Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg, a Polish rabbi then living in Toronto, as his successor. Robinson describes a dispute between Rosenberg and Cohen from 1919 to 1921, followed by steps toward addressing disorder in the kosher-meat industry and creating a united rabbinate and religious council.[2]

The congregation’s documented Outremont location stood within a major area of Jewish settlement. In 1951, Outremont had 30,057 residents, of whom 11,566 were Jewish, representing 38.4 percent of its population. Census tract 220, which included Adath Israel’s address, had 4,872 residents, including 2,747 Jewish residents, or 56.4 percent of the tract’s population.[3]

The 1955 population study places Adath Israel among the synagogues, schools, and communal facilities that accompanied the movement of Montreal’s Jewish population into newer residential districts. Its listing of both a synagogue and an academy at 1540 Ducharme Street illustrates the combination of religious and educational institutions in Outremont.[3]

The available record emphasizes religious education and the preservation of immigrant communal memory rather than the congregation’s economic affairs. In 1955, the Adath Israel Academy & Hebrew School operated at the same Ducharme Street address as the synagogue.[3] A historical directory also lists a Poali Zedek Talmud Torah among the schools participating in the United Talmud Torahs of Montreal arrangement in 1924–1925, although it does not connect that school to the later composite congregation.[4]

The Anshei Ozeroff tradition preserved ties to Ozarow, Poland. Holocaust survivor Mechel Flicker emigrated to Montreal in 1947, became a pillar of Congregation Anshei Ozeroff, served as an officer for many years, and devoted nearly fifty years to preserving the memory of the town and its Jewish community.[7]

The best-documented Adath Israel site is 1540 Ducharme Street in Outremont, listed in 1955 as the address of both the synagogue and the Adath Israel Academy & Hebrew School.[3] Another historical address associated with a constituent name is 3301 St. Urbain Street, where a directory placed the Poali Zedek Talmud Torah in 1924–1925. The directory does not identify that school as part of the later Adath Israel–Poale Zedek–Anshei Ozeroff Congregation.[4]

The contemporary congregational name combines Adath Israel, Poale Zedek, and Anshei Ozeroff, but the available sources do not document a formal three-way merger. A historical Canadian Jewish communal directory lists Anshe Ozeroff Congregation and Poale Tzedek Congregation separately among Montreal congregations. It supplies no addresses, founding dates, officers, or organizational histories for those entries and does not connect them with Adath Israel.[4]

A JewishGen Yizkor-book passage independently identifies Congregation Anshei Ozeroff as an Ozarow synagogue in Montreal.[7] Contemporary reporting uses the combined Adath Israel–Poale Zedek–Anshei Ozeroff name.[1] Taken together, the records establish the historical use of the constituent names but not the dates, legal structure, or precise sequence through which they became associated.

Rev. Benjamin Hass was appointed chazan of Adath Israel Congregation in Montreal in 1965 and served until 1987. Before coming to Montreal, he had been first reader at Dublin’s United Hebrew Congregation and Liverpool’s Greenbank Drive Synagogue. He retired to Israel in 1987.[8]

A National Library of Israel newspaper record dated April 1, 1966, is titled “Rabbi Zeilingold Appointed to Adath Israel Pulpit.” The catalog information does not establish that the item concerns the Montreal congregation and therefore cannot be used to identify Zeilingold as one of its rabbis.[9]

The congregation remained publicly identifiable under its composite name in 2024, when it was among more than one hundred Jewish institutions targeted in a mass email bomb threat in Canada. The building resumed normal operations after security protocols were followed, and the incident drew statements from Mount Royal MP Anthony Housefather and Hampstead Mayor Jeremy Levi.[1]

The surviving records leave substantial questions about institutional continuity. JewishGen’s database covers Adath Israel (Outremont) only from 1938 to 1942, while the biography of Benjamin Hass documents an Adath Israel Congregation in Montreal from 1965 to 1987. Neither source explains the relationship between those records.[6][8]

My Jewish Learning lists the composite organization in Quebec, and the Jerusalem Post associates the full name with the Montreal area.[5][1] Separately, the Yizkor-book account identifies Congregation Anshei Ozeroff as a Montreal Ozarow synagogue.[7] The historical directory lists Anshe Ozeroff and Poale Tzedek independently and does not tie either entry to Adath Israel.[4] The available sources consequently do not establish a complete merger chronology, a continuous sequence of names, or the legal relationship among the constituent organizations.