Kensington Market's Jewish History

Like Toronto's Italian community, Jewish immigrants — fleeing pogroms and anti-Semitic persecution across the Russian Empire and Eastern Europe — first concentrated in St. John's Ward in the late 19th century, working largely in the garment trade. By around 1910 the Ward had become overcrowded, and the Jewish population began moving west into the area that became Kensington Market, converting the ground floors of Victorian rowhouses into shops. By the 1920s, roughly 80% of Toronto's Jewish population lived in or near Kensington, and the district earned the nickname "the Jewish Market."

Two synagogues that remain

Two synagogues anchor this history: the Kiever Synagogue, founded in 1912 by Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, whose twin-domed Byzantine Revival building at Bellevue Square was completed in 1927 and became, in 1979, the first building of Jewish significance designated a historic site by the Province of Ontario; and Anshei Minsk, founded the same year, which completed its current building in 1930. Both remain active congregations today.

The move up Bathurst

After the Second World War, the community began moving northwest along Bathurst Street, a migration that accelerated through the 1950s and 1960s as Forest Hill and later neighbourhoods further north became centres of Jewish suburban life. Kensington Market itself diversified over the 20th century as Portuguese, Caribbean and Latin American immigrants moved in, but the Kiever and Anshei Minsk synagogues remain active reminders of the district's Jewish founding community.

Sources

• The Canadian Encyclopedia — Kensington Market
• Ontario Jewish Archives — Toronto's First Synagogues: Kiever