By FRANCES KRAFT
Staff Reporter
Rabbi Menachem Gansburg and his wife Chana have brought Chabad to a trendy section of Avenue Road north of Lawrence Avenue, causing some initially confused reactions from people who wonder why they’re not on nearby Bathurst Street, with its many Jewish shops and institutions.
Thirty years ago, large North American cities like Toronto typically had one Chabad institution. Today, “almost every zip code has representation,” said Rabbi Zalman Grossbaum, director of Chabad Lubavitch activities for Ontario.
“You have Chabad spilling into every community, every pocket where Jews are situated.”
In Toronto and the surrounding area, there are about 17 Chabad centres, including in Mississauga, Hamilton and Niagara Falls.
Typically, Chabad shluchim (emissaries) are young married couples who start their endeavour from scratch, creating programs and raising funds to become self-sustaining. “It’s challenging, because these rabbis come without being invited,” said Rabbi Grossbaum. “We create the demand.”
In Toronto, Chabad on the Avenue – as Rabbi Gansburg’s fledgling centre is known – is one of just four new Chabad centres that have opened in recent months, and plans are in the works to open one in the Beach area as well.
• Chabad Lubavitch of Downtown Toronto (jewishdt.com), run by Rabbi Mendel Chaikin and his wife Chanie out of their Queen’s Quay condo, serves the area south of College Street, between Bathurst and Yonge Street. They serve area residents, tourists, people who work downtown, and downtown hospital patients.
• Rabbi Moshe and Yehudis Steiner at Uptown Chabad Lubavitch (uptownchabad.com), cater to, for the most part, young families, many of whom are unaffiliated, who live in Bathurst Manor. The Steiners operate out of their home, but recently began holding Shabbat morning services at C.H. Best Middle School.
• York University also has a new Chabad, a student club run by former York student Vidal Bekerman, a 30-year-old ba’al tshuvah, and his wife Chanah Leah Medina. Bekerman, who is not a rabbi, said that there are about 300 students on his mailing list. He said he is on good terms with Hillel staff, who offer a variety of programs and services to York’s 4,500 Jewish students. However, noted Bekerman, there is still a large percentage “that needs to be reached.”
The Gansburgs have been on Avenue Road in a 6,000-square-foot former restaurant, across from the upscale food store Pusateri’s, since December. They are reaching out to Jews in the area bounded by Wilson Avenue and Eglinton Avenue, Yonge Street and the Allen Road.
On an initial visit to the area west of Avenue Road and north of Lawrence, where many small postwar homes have been replaced by newer, larger ones, the Gansburgs noted that a large percentage of the homes had mezuzot.
They introduced themselves to about 50 neighbours by going door-to-door with challah for Shabbat. Many residents told the Gansburgs they didn’t even know their neighbours.
The rabbi, a 25-year-old Toronto native who grew up in Thornhill, said he wants to “create a tight-knit community.” Typically, he said, residents of the area are young families with parents who are “very successful, but very overworked.
“We are here to service the local Jewish community in anything they need.” Programs include a “Kiddie Care” afternoon drop-in centre that features weekly challah-baking, evening Torah classes, a women’s program and the Avenue Road Synagogue, which attracts more than 40 people to Shabbat morning services – and almost double that when services are followed by a kiddush.
Most of the “members” (there is no membership fee) belong to other synagogues, the rabbi noted, referring to existing institutions that service area residents.
Although Chabad’s highest priority is outreach to unaffiliated Jews,“if someone happens to be a member [elsewhere] and wants to come to our synagogue,” they are welcome, he said. The shul, where men and women sit on either side of a row of artificial trees, offers Friday night and Saturday morning services.
Although Chabad is Orthodox, it’s “non-threatening,” said Rabbi Gansburg. There’s “no obligation” to become religious, but he is happy to help anyone who wants to “advance” in their Judaism.
Joy Kaufman, a 47-year-old mother of two who is affiliated with a synagogue that is not close to her home, describes the Avenue Road facility as “a great place to be.
“You’ve got to come on a Saturday. It’s magical,” she said, adding that she is “not the least bit religious.” She was at the centre to help organize last weekend’s Purim program that was scheduled to feature a smoothie bar from Pusateri’s and costume judges from Canadian Idol.
Chana, a 21-year-old teacher who grew up in Montreal, runs the children’s program and the “Jewish Women’s Circle,” which offers programs every six to eight weeks. For Tu b’Shvat, a local chef demonstrated fruit carving, and Chana talked briefly about the holiday.
“I wanted to show this neighbourhood, especially the kids, that Judaism can be as hip as anything else out there,” said Rabbi Gansburg.
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