National Post Coverage!

"Annex Shul celebrates first anniversary!"

"A fledgling shul in the Annex, begun with a single e-mail to friends, celebrates its first anniversary today." Read the full article in the National Post:

http://communities.canada.com/nationalpost/blogs/toronto/archive/2007/11...

The Annex Shul featured in Canadian Jewish News!

http://www.cjnews.com/viewarticle.asp?id=11068

January 25, 2007
6 Shevat, 5767
CANADIAN JEWISH NEWS

Annex Shul thriving in downtown Toronto
By FRANCES KRAFT
Staff Reporter

TORONTO - In the three months since it began holding services, the fledgling Annex Shul has acquired a mailing list of almost 500 people.
Its weekly Carlebach-style Friday night services at the Wolfond Centre for Jewish Campus Life feature much singing, and a “trichitzah” that divides the room into three sections – one for men, one for women and one for mixed seating. Services are followed by a modestly priced catered dinner that costs $15, or $10 for students.

The congregation – a “traditional, inclusive” community that uses three different prayerbooks at each service – was the brainchild of Bram Belzberg, 26, who launched it in October with his friend Richard Meloff, 29.

Participants are mostly young professionals in the downtown area. Some come straight from work in their business suits, Belzberg said, although he himself wears jeans, and according to the shul’s website, dress is informal. About 20 per cent of attendees are students.

Walk-ins are welcome, said Belzberg, although advance notice is appreciated.

Spontaneous discussions over dinner have included topics such as egalitarianism and “how Judaism fits in,” said Meloff.

Sometimes dancing “breaks out” at dinner, or someone might offer a dvar Torah or a story. “It’s very fluid,” he added.

“It’s a vibrant place where people engage,” said Belzberg, a graduate of McGill University who is active in UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. He was inspired to create the shul by his involvement as a student with Montreal’s Ghetto Shul, a grassroots congregation in McGill’s student ghetto.

“I love Carlebach [services] – the style, the scene, the dancing,” Belzberg said. He also likes the mix of social and religious aspects, and has found that singing is his “favourite way of being spiritual.”

After returning to Toronto about 18 months ago after a stint working for an investment bank in New York, Belzberg e-mailed about 150 friends and acquaintances – including friends he made as a youngster at Camp Ramah – with an outline of the type of congregation he wanted to create.

For Meloff – a consultant in financial services who returned to Toronto in September after working for three years at a New York law firm – the idea was particularly appealing.

He had attended New York’s Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, and thought Belzberg’s idea, which targeted people between 20 and 35, might be just what he was looking for when he came back to Canada. B’nai Jeshurun is known for its music- and energy-filled Friday night services, which revitalized the then-struggling congregation in the mid-1980s.

“My motivation was to create a shul I actually wanted to attend,” Meloff said.

After the two of them teamed up to get the idea off the ground, 110 people showed up at the first Shabbat service. They invited anyone who was interested in helping make the endeavour successful to attend a meeting the following week.

The shul’s philosophy, said Belzberg, is that it’s a “grassroots, bottoms-up organization. We believe that this population is more driven to get involved in something they create on their own and more ready to identify with an organization they can create and that is created by their peers.

“What we’re trying to do will allow the membership to dictate the direction of the shul.”

Julie Weill, a 25-year-old who works for a software company, is one of more than a dozen young adults who came together in the earliest days to pitch in. “I was on the bandwagon from the second I found out about it,” she said. “I’m not very religious, but… [the shul has] such an energy and such a community involvement.”

Since its inception, the Annex Shul has formed a sports league, run study classes and a drum circle, and held a Chanukah party at a downtown gallery that was attended by more than 300 people. A Purim party is in the works.

The goal is a fully self-sufficient synagogue, said Meloff, adding that he and Belzberg are grateful for the support of Hillel of Greater Toronto, which has provided not only a place to hold events, but the services of Rabbi Aaron Levy.

For more information, e-mail info@annexshul.com, or go to www.annexshul.com.