Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish taught in the name of Rabbi Yehudah Nesiyah:
“The world endures for the sake of the breath of schoolchildren.”
(Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 119a)
You may know that since October 7, 2023, there has been an increased interest in enrollment in Toronto’s Jewish Day Schools, resulting in significant waiting lists. UJA Federation of Greater Toronto has been working with schools to identify and encourage creative solutions to increase capacity.
Bialik Hebrew Day School, located at Bathurst and Viewmount, has approached Holy Blossom to inquire about renting classroom space in our David Feldman Jewish Education Centre. Last week, the Temple Board decided to pursue this wonderful opportunity. Beginning in the Fall of 2026, Bialik’s Junior Kindergarten cohort will rent six newly renovated classrooms on the third floor of our School Wing. We are very excited to see all our classrooms filled with Jewish children, to collaborate with Bialik, and to join UJA in its mission to raise up a strong Jewish community for the coming generation.
Of course, our own expanding Holy Blossom Temple Early Childhood Centre (ECC) will proudly continue to offer government-subsidized Jewish childcare and Jewish nursery programs throughout the second floor of our David Feldman Jewish Education Centre. Our own part-time Holy Blossom Temple Youth Education Centre (YEC) will continue to welcome students JK through Grade 12 into all our classrooms on Sundays and after school hours on weekdays.
Thanks to the success of our Renewal Project, dedicated in 2018, there is adequate space to grow. This collaboration presents additional opportunities for relocating and renovating our Rabbinic, Cantorial, and Education Offices. These improvements and classroom renovations will be completed by September 2026 and with minimal disruption to Temple life. Holy Blossom Temple and Bialik Hebrew Day School are grateful to UJA for their commitment to expanding Toronto Jewish Day School capacity. Our three organizations are motivated by our common devotion to excellence in Jewish Education.
We are very pleased to share this announcement with you today and look forward to sharing more details with you in the coming months.
L’Shalom,
Eric Roher, Temple President
Rachel Malach, Executive Director
Rabbi Yael Splansky, Baskin-Garson Senior Rabbinic Chair
Join us in taking action and making a difference this week:
Say No to Nazi Symbols! B’nai Brith Canada has launched an urgent petition to ban the public display and sale of Nazi symbols. These hateful emblems have no place in Canada, and your voice can help ensure they are removed. Sign the petition here!
The radical anti-Israel band ‘Kneecap’ is planning a Canadian tour. Honest Reporting Canada is encouraging the community to voice opposition to this tour, which promotes divisive and harmful rhetoric. Together, we can reject messages of hate. Learn more and take action here!
The UJA Walk with Israel is back on May 25th! Join tens of thousands as we take to Bathurst Street in a powerful show of solidarity with Israel and the Jewish community. Last year, nearly 50,000 participants came together to celebrate our shared values and take a stand against Jew hatred in Canada. Be part of the movement and join the Holy Blossom Team here. We can’t wait to walk alongside you!
Learn more about Advocacy @ HBT here.
The annual UJA Walk with Israel is on May 25th! Last year, nearly 50,000 people walked down Bathurst Street to support the Jewish community, stand with our friends and families in Israel, and proudly reject Jew hatred in Canada. You can join our Holy Blossom Team here! We look forward to seeing you there!
The Interfaith Bridge is one of our valued partners, and their “Night to Remember” is May 14th. Join them, and many other interfaith advocacy-based groups, as we continue to motivate our community to stand against antisemitism. Rabbi Splansky, Reverend Byassee, and others will share inspiring words of courage and hope!
The Nova Exhibit has opened in Toronto! Please make plans to see it and, as always, bring your community with you. It’s not enough for only the Jews to visit this heartbreaking and vital piece of testimony. Our allies and their families need to join us as witnesses. Plan to go on your own, or join Holy Blossom Temple and visit the exhibit as a group on June 3rd.
Learn more about Advocacy@HBT here.
By Susan Mogil
When Pesach is over, the minds of some turn to summer camp. Even the parents and grandparents of campers recall their summers at sleepover camp with fondness. In the early days of the community, establishing activities for Jewish youth was an important way for Jewish organizations to not only occupy children during the summer months but also to impart specific Jewish values and political principles.
Readers may read more and see photos of Jewish camping movement on the website of the Ontario Jewish Archives. OJA has a vast amount of archival material related to this unique experience. The collection reveals the early days of the community when summer camps were aligned with political movements or branches of Judaism.
As early as the 1930s, private summer camps that catered to the Jewish communities around Ontario were established all over the Muskoka and Kawartha regions. At many of these camps, Jewish traditions such as a Shabbat service, were blended into a largely secular program. Several Jewish summer camps have owners with strong ties to Holy Blossom.
Camps Winnebagoe and Ogama
Camp Winnebagoe was the first Jewish co-educational camp established in Canada. Founded by Joe and Sadie Danson in 1933, it has always been steeped in rich traditions, particularly mindful of its Jewish heritage. The camp had several lakeside locations, but in 1971, Camp Winnegaboe purchased Camp Ogama, originally operated by Jill and Ben Lustig on Fox Lake near Huntsville, and it has been there since. Both Danson and Lustig families are long-time Temple members. Daughter Ilyse Lustig now runs the camp.
Camp Wahanowin
Harold Nashman and his mother, Anne (Bubby Nash), always dreamed of owning a summer camp for Jewish children. They discovered the site on Lake Couchiching near Orillia, and Camp Wahanowin welcomed its first campers in the summer of 1955. Harold’s son Bruce and his wife Patti own and run the camp 80 years on.
Camp White Pine
Joe Kronick founded Camp White Pine in 1956 in Haliburton on Hurricane Lake (also known as Lake Placid). Camp White Pine has a strong tradition as a Jewish camp, with programming, rituals, and community involvement designed to teach campers about their heritage. Joe and Doreen Kronick were active members of Holy Blossom, and Joe was the temple’s Youth Director in the 1950s. Their son Adam and daughter-in-law Dana took over as camp directors in 1987, continuing Joe’s approach to camping.
Camp Kawagama
Elsie and David Palter opened Camp Kawagama in 1945 on Hollow Lakes in Haliburton. They promoted Kawagama as a progressive Jewish camp with special meals on Friday night and services. In later years, it was run by their son David Palter and daughter-in-law Ruth-Ellen Soles.
Camp George is the 1st and only Canadian camp run by URJ and has a close connection to Holy Blossom. It was founded in 1999 on Maple Lake on a campsite previously owned by Camp Winnebago since 1960. HBT and Temple Sinai brotherhoods were “hands-on” to clear the site. Camp George has many staff and campers who are HBT members. Every summer, the camp is visited by HBT and Leo Baeck clergy & staff. Holy Blossom also supports 4 Camp George scholarships. Watch here for the introductory Camp George video.
(The Archives Committee receives inquiries regularly. We invite you to contact us about this or other areas of interest at: [email protected]. We are always interested in learning and sharing more about our remarkable history. We also encourage you to examine the archival displays in the Schwartz-Reisman Atrium.)
By Dr. Lesley Simpson
I was invited to give a keynote chat at Central Synagogue in New York about Jewish wisdom letters, sometimes called ethical wills, earlier this year. These letters are part of an extraordinary tradition not well known in the Diaspora.
I am a new member of Holy Blossom and the founder of L’chaim: The Jewish Letters Project, an online newsletter on Substack. I publish letters twice a month. In these letters, Jews share what has made their lives meaningful. The letters are as varied as the people who write them. Launched in 2024, L’chaim: The Jewish Letters Project highlights examples from the 12th century to the present day, across multiple platforms ranging from videos to comics and handwritten letters.
Central Synagogue asked me to design a one-hour workshop that was both an introduction to the repository as well as a writing workshop. My presentation included a video about a woman who carries the letter her late father wrote because she can “hear his voice and feel his presence.” I included a video of a mother, father and grandmother in Israel reading the letter from their late 22-year-old son and grandson, who quoted the prophet Isaiah’s conclusion that Jerusalem would require protection. I am grateful to the generosity of anyone who makes a letter public because it gives us all a chance to hear the voices of those who are no longer physically here.
In the class in Manhattan, one woman shared a story that her late father wrote a list of all the qualities he loved about his daughter. He later developed Alzheimer’s disease. She keeps the list framed on her desk at work.
You can watch the recording here: https://youtu.be/iitEhNWiY6A
I am a former journalist and published children’s book author. I did my PhD about this tradition because I developed a serious case of what I call radical Jewish curiosity. As HB’s executive director, Rachel Malach said, it feels good when, as Jews, we work together to make each other stronger. Rabbi Yael Splansky suggested that in dark times, we lean into our Jewish tradition. For myself, this leaning in has been profound.
It is my dream to create a new collection of letters, one that will include Mizrachi and Sephardic Jews, black Jews and Jews by choice from around the world. I invited everyone at Central Synagogue to subscribe, and I am issuing the same invitation to Holy Blossom. Just click on the link below and hit subscribe. You can share this invitation with family, friends or colleagues anywhere in the world without a fee. Thank you for helping me illuminate this remarkable tradition that belongs to us all. I call L’chaim, The Jewish Letters Project, my flashlight during a dark time.
Dr. Lesley Simpson
jewishlettersproject.substack.com
By Megan Stephens, Director, Holy Blossom Temple Board
On Thursday, May 1, HBT board members spent the evening on the Ve’ahavta vans, helping to launch our community into another season of collaborating with Ve’ahavta to help the most needy in our city. Thursday was a cold and rainy evening, and coffee was in high demand; a reminder of how welcome and necessary Ve’ahavta’s services are.
Ask anyone who has volunteered on the Ve’ahavta vans: it is a meaningful experience that opens your eyes to the challenges faced by the unhoused, the rough-housed, and others who have fallen through the cracks of our social safety net. As volunteers, you help give out food, hot drinks, clothing, and other essential supplies (like toiletries, sleeping bags, shoes, etc.) at regular stops either in Toronto or Scarborough & North York. If you haven’t volunteered with Ve’ahvata but have with Holy Blossom’s Out of the Cold, Ve’ahavta is a bit like taking Out of the Cold on the road (except there’s no bingo)!
Volunteering with Ve’ahavta, like Out of the Cold, gives you the opportunity to put our Jewish values into action, underscoring the importance of tikkun olam and tzedakah to our community.
Ve’ahavta sends two vans with volunteers and staff out into the community every night.
For the spring, summer, and fall of 2025, the Holy Blossom community has committed to place volunteers on the vans for two shifts a month, rotating between Tuesdays and Thursdays. Please consider signing up for an evening – whether on your own, with friends, or with family. They need three volunteers to join the two staff members in the van. The shifts specific to the Holy Blossom community include the following:
Tuesday, May 13 – North York/Scarborough
Thursday, May 29 – Downtown
Tuesday, June 10 – North York/Scarborough
Thursday, June 26 – Downtown
Tuesday, July 8 – North York/Scarborough
Thursday, July 24 – Downtown
Tuesday, August 5 – North York/Scarborough
Thursday, August 21 – Downtown
Tuesday, September 2 – North York/Scarborough
Thursday, September 18 – Downtown
Sunday, September 28 – North York/Scarborough (Sundays are afternoon shifts, which may be more convenient for some)
Thursday, October 16 – Downtown
Tuesday, October 28 – North York/Scarborough
Ve’ahavta has an online volunteer portal that will allow you to access the Holy Blossom specific van opportunities (and sign up for either the Toronto or North/York Scarborough van).
If you volunteered last year through Holy Blossom, you should already be in the system and can go ahead and book some shifts.
If you haven’t previously volunteered, please follow the steps below to get yourself registered to volunteer. It’s less daunting than it seems!
Instructions to create an account in Bloomerang Volunteer.
If you have any questions about the process, please email [email protected]
If you have any Holy Blossom-specific questions about volunteering with Ve’ahavta, please email me at [email protected].
Thank you! We look forward to seeing our community out helping in the city this spring, summer and fall.
1950 Bathurst Street, Toronto, ON, M5P 3K9
(416) 789-3291
[email protected]
Emergency Funeral Contact
Cell: 416-565-7561
Founded in 1856, Holy Blossom Temple is Toronto’s first synagogue with a rich history of tradition and modernity in our religious and spiritual expression.