Since the beginning of Jewish settlement in Toronto, there were plenty of Christian community groups and organizations that sought to assimilate, and many times convert the incoming Jewish population. Many Jews benefitted from the community work of these Christian organizations, some Jews treated them with a great deal of animosity, and very few Jews converted and became proselytizing Christian in The Ward and later Kensington. There was great tension between the Jewish community and some formerly Jewish Christian leaders who specifically targeted Kensington Jews because they often could preach in Yiddish and could be especially effective at converting more Jews to Christianity. In a report from the summer of 1913, the Canadian Jewish news reported five Orthodox men chasing a converted Christian preacher out of the Kensington neighborhood, signifying the tension sometimes boiling over for Jewish immigrants in Toronto.[1]
[1] Lawrence F. Tapper, A Biographical Dictionary of Canadian Jewry 1909-1914 : from The Canadian Jewish Times (Teaneck, N.J.: Avotaynu, 1992) 167.