Groundbreaking Signals Changing Times for Ottawa Jewish Community

OTTAWA, Ontario — For Rabbi Menachem Blum, breaking ground in Barrhaven for the first new synagogue to be built in Ottawa for decades isn’t a case of ‘build it and they will come.’

“It’s more ‘They’re here, so let’s put walls around it,’ ” says the leader of the Ottawa Torah Centre, a Jewish education centre that has grown steadily since the late 1990s.

For now, the centre operates out of trailers parked on a windswept corner lot near Cedarview Road and Kennevale Drive. On Sunday, local dignitaries and members of the congregation will gather for the laying of a symbolic cornerstone for a new 12,000-square foot building. Full construction is expected to begin within weeks on the stone and brick-clad building, the most concrete symbol yet of the growth of the Jewish community in Ottawa’s southwest.

It’s believed the first Jews settled what was then called Bytown around the middle of the 19th century, primarily in the rough and tumble of Lowertown. The community was so small families worshiped together in homes, but slowly it grew and founded the first synagogue in 1892 on Rideau Street, according to A Common Thread: A History of the Jews of Ottawa. More synagogues followed over the years, including several downtown, one in Alta Vista, another on Prince of Wales Drive. The community has gradually moved west, prompting the opening in 1998 of the Soloway Jewish Community Centre on Broadview Avenue just off Carling Avenue.

Blum moved to the nearby Westboro area in 1995, coming from his native France via studies in New York. Blum and his wife Dina are members of the Chabad movement, a branch of Orthodox Judaism that puts an emphasis on outreach, education and “connecting people to their Jewish heritage,” says Blum.

“Every synagogue faces the challenge of unaffiliation, and young families in particular are not connecting to the older synagogues,” says Blum. “We wanted to reach out to young families and create a hub of activity, and Barrhaven was the right place.”

Much like the first Jews in Ottawa 150 years ago, the Blums moved to Barrhaven in 1996 and began holding prayer meetings and Hebrew school classes in their basement. The community grew from handful of families into the hundreds, prompting a move to a bigger house and then to a storefront in a strip mall on Cedarview Road, then a second storefront. In 2003, the Ottawa Torah Centre bought 1.4 acres of land in a new subdivision being developed around the corner on Kennevale Drive and hired architecture firm Barry Hobin and Associates to draw up plans for a permanent home on the site.

While Blum and the congregation leadership worked on raising $4 million for construction, they installed water and sewer services and paved the parking lot. In 2008, the centre moved into trailers on the property. This year, with $3 million of the building fund raised, it was time to get started on the new building. The OTC will be a “one-stop space for holiday events and worship” for the Jewish community, says Blum.

“I like to say that we are not just a synagogue with a building attached, we are a Jewish education centre with a synagogue in it,” says Blum. “Many of our participants don’t identify themselves as Orthodox but they come for the welcoming atmosphere. We believe in taking the Jewish journey at your own pace.”

Blum’s outreach goes beyond the Jewish community to the wider community. He leads workshops on interfaith dialogue with a Muslim colleague and regularly teaches schoolchildren in the public school boards about Jewish high holidays. Blum is regularly on Facebook and Twitter, where he encourages people to connect via his own hashtag, #AskRabbiBlum.

The Barrhaven centre has been designed to accommodate the variety of activities the congregation undertakes, with offices, classrooms, a library and a kitchen. Instead of a sanctuary with fixed pews, the building will have a main space with folding banquet chairs and removable walls, making it easy to accommodate small meetings, bigger services and even bigger gatherings on high holidays.

As some of Ottawa’s Jewish congregations age and decline, others are growing. The Beth Shalom synagogue on Chapel Street was recently sold because the congregation could no longer afford the upkeep. The congregation of Temple Israel, a Modern Reform synagogue, has outgrown its building on Prince of Wales Drive and has been searching for a new home inside the Greenbelt for several years. The Ottawa Torah Centre’s move is a milestone for the wider Ottawa Jewish community, says Rabbi Steven Garten of Temple Israel.

“It’s an outstanding achievement,” says Garten. “Ottawa Torah Centre have been working diligently for years to do this. This is the first new synagogue-oriented building in Ottawa since the 1970s, so it’s pretty significant.”

Blum hopes to be in the new building by the summer of 2014. He’s looking forward to it, and not just because it means Hebrew school classes shouldn’t need to spill over to his own home, which backs onto the building site.

“It’s an exciting time,” says Blum. “We hope the centre will ensure the continuity and future of the Jewish community.”