Congregation Habonim of Toronto | |
---|---|
Religion | |
Affiliation | Judaism |
Rite | Unaffiliated |
Ecclesiastical or organizational status | Synagogue |
Status | Active |
Location | |
Location | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
Municipality | Toronto |
Geographic coordinates | 43°42′46″N79°25′46″W / 43.71278°N 79.42944°W |
Architecture | |
Type | Synagogue |
Completed | 1954 |
Website | |
www |
Congregation Habonim Toronto, founded in 1954, is a liberal reform synagogue located at 5 Glen Park Avenue in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and one of the first Holocaust refugee/survivor congregations to develop in Canada. [1] Although currently independent of any official denomination, its early founders modeled the synagogue on the example of early Reform Judaism in Germany.
The early members of Habonim (literally "the builders") were Holocaust survivors or refugees from Central Europe, who arrived in Canada after World War II. [2]
One of its founders and first President was George Spitz, a Jewish refugee from Berlin, who unsuccessfully attempted to bring over his family from Germany in 1939 on the ill-fated MS St. Louis.
Paul Alexander, also a refugee of Berlin, was an early vice-president of the synagogue - his twin brother Hanns was most famous for capturing Rudolf Höss, the Kommandant of Auschwitz. [3] Both served as officers in the British Army during World War II and, given their fluency with the German language, were in charge of German POWs at the war's close.
The first High Holiday services were held in 1954 in rented premises downtown, but by 1958 they were renting space from the Judaea Lodge of the Knights of Pythias, [4] a non-sectarian branch of an American organization started during the U.S. Civil War and established in Toronto 1927. This rented space in uptown Toronto was located at its current site near Bathurst and Glencairn. The building was purchased outright by the Congregation in 1968. [5]
The Congregation also supports a choir, the Habonim Youth Choir, [6] whose recording of the peace song Lay Down Your Arms (Doron Levinson song) has received international exposure. The choir was founded in 1990 by Habonim's cantor Esther Ghan Firestone and the synagogue's religious leader Eli Rubenstein. The choir's current conductor is Habonim cantor Aviva Rajsky, and its accompanist is Tom Bellman. The choir, which presently also includes adults, is now called, "The Habonim Choir."
The choir's rendition of Lay Down Your Arms [7] was featured on Fern Levitt's documentary, Gorbachev's Revolution. [8]
Their recording of the Holocaust song, Eli, Eli [9] (lyrics by Hannah Szenes), and "The Song of the Vilna Partisans" (Zog Nit Keyn Mol) appeared on David Kaufman's 2003 documentary, From Despair to Defiance, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. [10] Eli, Eli also appeared on the short documentary "To Live and Die with Honor" commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. [11] On May 22, 2014, the Habonim Youth Choir opened up for the legendary Puerto Rican virtuoso blind guitarist & singer, Jose Feliciano, at a Benefit Concert for the Canadian Friends of the Israel Guide Dog Centre for the Blind at the Toronto Centre for the Arts. [12]
2015 Recording of "Lay Down Your Arms":
To mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, the Habonim Youth Choir and the March of the Living Children's Choir, recorded a new version of "Lay Down Your Arms". Cantor Aviva Rajsky and guitarist Tom Bellman - from Toronto's Congregation Habonim - composed a new arrangement for the song. It was first performed on Holocaust Remembrance Day, at the 2015 March of the Living ceremony in Auschwitz-Birkenau. [13]
The synagogue makes its facilities available to a number of other organizations, including Ve'ahavta, co-sponsoring a Passover Seder for the Homeless [14] every year and the Toronto Partnership Minyan, [15] an Orthodox egalitarian initiative in Toronto spearheaded by Professor Martin Lockshin, and has co-sponsored events with other organizations outside the Jewish community such as Free the Children and Me to We, [16] producing a joint event featuring the Kenyan Boys Choir.
It is also home to Canada's only multi-denominational introductory conversion course. [17]
The synagogue windows are made of stained glass created by modern-day master Gerald Tooke (1931-2011), considered among Canada's leading practitioners of the craft. His work may also be seen at Mount Allison University Chapel in Sackville, N.B, Ontario's legislative buildings in Toronto, and in many churches and other buildings across Canada, said to number around 100 in all. [18]
The distinctive ark was designed by celebrated Canadian sculptor May Marx. [19] The ark was manufactured and installed by longtime synagogue member Alfred Altman, himself a refugee from Düsseldorf Germany. While he escaped Düsseldorf on the Kindertransport in 1939, both his parents were murdered in the Holocaust and now have Stolperstein monuments placed in their memory in front of their former home. [20] [21] [22]
In 2015, amidst a growing membership and religious school the synagogue launched a new building campaign to replace its decaying structure, aimed at raising $9.5 million, later revised to $13.5 million. As of early 2018, $12 million of its fundraising goal had been reached. Groundbreaking took place in the summer of 2018, with completion taking place in the fall of 2019 in time for the 2019 High Holidays. [23]
“I feel a great sense of pride that I have been able to be even a small part of the process that is leading Habonim into a new era. I love the clean simplicity of the design. I feel we have been able to maintain the humble beginnings of our congregation in a beautiful new building that speaks to the future.,’" Habonim President Joanie Smith said in an interview with the Canadian Jewish News in November 2019. [24]
Some of the notable figures associated with the Congregation include:
The March of the Living is an annual educational program which brings students from around the world to Poland, where they explore the remnants of the Holocaust. On Holocaust Memorial Day observed in the Jewish calendar, thousands of participants march silently from Auschwitz to Birkenau.
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Abraham Aharon Price was a renowned Torah scholar, writer, educator, and a community leader in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was one of the city's most influential rabbinic figures.
Benzion Miller is a cantor, schochet and mohel (circumciser), as was his father, Aaron Daniel Miller. He was born in a displaced persons camp in Fernwald, Germany.
Congregation Beth Israel is an egalitarian Conservative synagogue and congregation located at 15 Jamesbury Drive in Worcester, Massachusetts, in the United States. Founded in 1924 as an Orthodox synagogue, the congregation formally affiliated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism in 1949, and describes itself as the "leading Conservative congregation in Central Massachusetts."
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"Lay Down Your Arms" is a peace song originally in Hebrew language as תפילה לשלום composed by the Israeli Doron B. Levinson in 1973 in the aftermath of Yom Kippur War when Levinson was temporarily blind at the time, having been injured during the war. The Hebrew lyrics are by Hamutal Ben Zeev-Efron. The song is a tribute to a fallen Israeli soldier. The lyrics written by Hamutal Ben Zeev-Efron are inspired by the Isaiah (2:4) that says "And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they teach their children war anymore".
Esther Ghan Firestone was the first female cantor in Canada, although she was not ordained. She began as a cantor in the mid-1950s at Toronto’s Temple Beth-El, and worked in Toronto at Temple Beth-El, Temple Emanu-El (1977), and later at Congregation Habonim Toronto from 1985 until some time in 2015. She was also a member of Kol Nashim, a sextet of female lay cantors founded in 1987.
Blind Love: A Holocaust Journey Through Poland with Man's Best Friend is a 2015 documentary film about blind Israelis traveling to Poland with the help of their guide dogs, to learn about the Holocaust. Footage includes blind participants taking part in the 2012 and 2013 March of the Living programs. The film is narrated by Michael Enright of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Avrum Rosensweig is the founding director of Ve'ahavta: The Canadian Jewish Humanitarian & Relief Committee. As the son of a rabbi, Avrum was greatly affected by the wars in the Balkans and Rwanda in the early 1990s. He decided then, it was paramount the Canadian Jewish community had a humanitarian organization dedicated to living up the Jewish promise of 'never again', that the community would respond when an injustice or disaster occurred. In 1996, Avrum founded Ve'ahavta, a non-profit charity with a mission to encourage all Jews, and all peoples, to play a role in tikun olam, repairing the world. In 2016, Avrum stepped down as CEO and took on the position of Founder & Ambassador, speaking, fundraising and furthering the mission of Ve'ahavta.
Eli Rubenstein is a Holocaust educator, writer, filmmaker, and activist. He is currently the religious leader of Congregation Habonim Toronto, a Toronto synagogue founded by Holocaust survivors, served as the Director of Education for March of the Living International since 1988, and currently serves as National Director of March of the Living Canada from 1988 to 2024.
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