100 YEARS AT THE BEACH: A HISTORY OF THE BEACH HEBREW INSTITUTE 1919-2019
Hardcover - Published by ECW Press
$75.00 with free shipping
$60.00 - BHI Member price

If you had lived in Toronto a hundred years ago, you would have been familiar with the massive influx of Jewish immigrants to the area around Spadina Avenue and College Street, but you might not have imagined a Jewish community out in the Beach district of eastern Toronto. Nonetheless, by the 1920s, about 40 Jewish families lived in the neighbourhood. Although anti-Semitism was alive and well in the Beach area, in general, the Jewish families lived at peace with their neighbours and participated freely in the activities of the community. Still, something was missing for them: a synagogue.

In October 1919, a small group of Jewish shopkeepers and housewives pooled their resources to purchase the building at 109 Kenilworth Avenue, two blocks up a tree-lined street from the shores of Lake Ontario, a building that had once housed a Baptist church. So was born the Beach Hebrew Institute. In this beautiful hard-cover book, our own Dena Bain Taylor captured the dynamic history of the synagogue as it navigated its first century.

To purchase our book, please complete this order form. We will then send an electronic invoice to your email address using PayPal. (You should normally receive this invoice within 72 hours.) Once payment is received, we will promptly ship your book.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at info@beachhebrewinstitute.ca.

Beach Hebrew Institute