Institutions In and Around the Market

The Kiever Synagogue was the first synagogue in Kensington Market. The congregation that founded it dates back to 1912, when it was founded in the Ward, and co-ordinating with the movement of many Toronto Jews from the Ward to the market, in 1917 the congregation acquired a house at 25 Bellevue, a purchased the house next door soon after. In 1927, a synagogue was completed at that location. Rabbi Solomon Lagner was the congregations’s longest serving rabbi – he served from the 1920s until his death in 1973.[i] Fischel Cooper was the synagogue’s ‘pied piper,’ as he led the youth minyan, and led boys through their bar mitzvah religious services and often took groups of day-trips to Queen’s Park and High Park.[ii]

The Kiever congregation had, when it was founded, formed an Executive of some of the founding members of the congregation, and around the year 1930 this group formed a credit society that provided financial help to members in need. For the new immigrants who made up the congregation, the credit society provided some help in the struggle to make ends meet, particularly during the Great Depression of the 1930s.[iii] The Kiever was also the root of the women’s group The Ladies Auxiliary, and other youth groups that provided community support. The synagogue served as a safety blanket and safety valve for immigrants, and served to stitch together the religious and social lives of Jewish Kensington Market residents.[iv]

The Standard Theatre, opened in 1922 on the northeast corner of Spadina and Dundas streets, was a 1500-seater Yiddish theatre – the first of its kind.[v] The Standard became a center of culture in the area, where all varieties of people met – from labour unions to Zionist groups – and the theatre housed election meetings, lectures, poetry readings, gala benefit performances, and of course plays. Before it was converted into a movie house and renamed The Strand in 1935, the Canadian Jewish Standard wrote that “when you gave your ticket to the doorman, you were admitted into a classless society.”[vi]

In addition to these Jewish centres of culture, the Church of St. Stephen-in-the-Fields, the Anglican Church at the corner of Bellevue and College, became a centre for Canadian radio broadcasting. Reverend James Edward Ward, who led the church from 1925 until his death in 1958, led The Way of the Spirit, a weekly religious drama series which pioneered religious radio services in Canada and abroad. St. Stephen-in-the-Fields was the first Canadian church to broadcast over the ocean, and thus earned an international following.[vii]