Beth Israel Synagogue (Edmonton) - Early History

Early History

Edmonton had only sixteen Jews living in it in 1901, but the Jewish population grew rapidly as a result of immigration from Eastern Europe, and in-migration from small towns and Jewish agricultural colonies in Alberta and Saskatchewan. In 1906, Edmonton's Jews, in concert with Jews in Calgary, began recruiting in eastern Canada for a rabbi to organize their communities. Hyman Goldstick arrived from Toronto in August to take on the role. Born in Latvia in 1882, Goldstick was Edmonton's first rabbi, and also served as Calgary's rabbi. He was also the Edmonton community's mohel (circumciser), and ritual slaughterer (subsequent rabbis would, for decades, also fill all three roles). On September 16, 1906, the Edmonton Jewish community founded the Edmonton Hebrew Association. Its role was to provide for all Edmonton's Jewish needs, including Jewish education, circumcision, prayer services, kosher meat, and burial. High Holiday services were held in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows hall.

In April 1907, the Edmonton Hebrew Association registered the Edmonton Hebrew Congregation of Beth Israel under the Religious Societies Lands Act of Alberta. In May of that year it purchased land for a cemetery, near Clover Bar, in Edmonton's east end. In September of that same year William Diamond was appointed president of the congregation. Diamond ran a clothing business he had started in Edmonton; by the 1920s, it was the largest in the Canadian Prairies. Diamond would serve as congregational president until 1938, the same year the synagogue transferred title of its cemetery to the local chevra kadisha (burial society).

In September 1907, the Edmonton Hebrew Association also created the Edmonton Talmud Torah for the community's five children, and purchased its first Torah scroll. The Edmonton Talmud Torah would operate out of the synagogue's location for over twelve years, and later became Canada's first Jewish day school.