History of the Jews in Toronto

The History of the Jews in Toronto refers to the history of the Jewish community of Toronto, Ontario. Jews have resided in Toronto since the early 19th century. Since the 1970s, the city has been home to the largest Jewish population in Canada and become a centre of Jewish Canadian culture. Toronto's Jews have played an important role in the development of the city.'

According to the 2001 census, 164,150 Jews lived in Toronto.

The earliest record of Jewish settlement in York is an 1817 communication between colonial offices. The report indicated that several weddings had taken place, one of which was Jewish. However, the first permanent Jewish presence in Toronto began in 1832, with the arrival of Arthur Wellington Hart, the Harts being among the most established Jewish families of British North America. By 1846, the census indicated that 12 Jews lived in Toronto, with the number doubling the following year. The first Jewish cemetery was established in 1849 and Toronto's first synagogue, the Toronto Hebrew Congregation, was founded in 1856.

In the late nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century, the Jewish community and other non-British immigrants were densely concentrated in "The Ward" between College Street, Queen Street, Yonge Street and University Avenue.

Mendel Ryman, who immigrated to Toronto from Jezierna, a town in the Austrian Empire, in 1903, built the first Jewish bathhouse and mikvah (shvitz) on Center Avenue.

Toronto's Jews generally centred themselves in distinct neighbourhoods and ethnic enclaves. By the 1930s, the largest concentration of Jews had moved west from "The Ward" to Kensington Market with Jews representing upwards of 80% of the population. Between Queen and Bloor Streets, toward Dovercourt, Jews established a distinct domicile, forming the ethnic majority in many areas. Often, employment opportunities determined the areas in which the Jews settled, as in the case of the Spadina district, a hub of the textile industry.

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