Early years The Goel Tzedec ('Righteous Redeemer') congregation was founded in October 1883 by (primarily
Litvak)
Eastern European Jewish immigrants to
Toronto, as an
Orthodox alternative to the
Reform Holy Blossom Temple. The synagogue purchased the building of a former church at
University Avenue and Elm Street the following year. Meanwhile, some of its members (mainly
Russians and
Galitzianers) left in 1887 to establish a new synagogue, Chevra Tehillim ('The Congregation of Psalms'). In 1905, Goel Tzedec appointed as
spiritual leader the
Volozhin Yeshiva graduate Rabbi Jacob Gordon, who would serve as senior rabbi until his death in November 1934. That same year, a building site on University Avenue near Armoury was purchased, and the new building was dedicated in February 1907. With seating for 1,200, the synagogue, designed by
architect , was the largest in the city. In 1905, Chevra Tehillim purchased the New Richmond Methodist Church on
McCaul Street, designed by architects Smith & Gemmel, and was renamed Beth Hamidrash Hagadol Chevra Tehillim ('The Great House of Prayer of the Congregation of Psalms'; informally the 'McCaul Street Synagogue'). Goel Tzedec adopted English-language
sermons in 1913, while Chevra Tehillim did so only in the 1920s (and only on
High Holy Days). The former joined the
Conservative movement in 1925, though it retained most of its traditional practices. Among other changes, insistence on decorum during the service, the
seating of women on the main floor, a new
prayer book, and the addition of some English prayers were introduced at Goel Tzedec in the mid-1930s. As Toronto Jewry began moving further north, Goel Tzedec in 1946 purchased the synagogue's current site on Bathurst in
York Township. In 1949, it established with the McCall Street Synagogue what would become the
Beth Tzedec Memorial Park. The congregation held Canada's first
bat mitzvah ceremony in 1950.
Amalgamation to present Goel Tzedec and Beth Hamidrash Hagadol amalgamated in 1952 to form the Beth Tzedec Congregation, and in December 1955 dedicated their new building, designed by architect
Peter Dickinson of the consulting firm
Page and Steele.
Judy Feld Carr became Beth Tzedec's first female president in 1983. The synagogue began granting
aliyahs to women in the mid-1990s. It has counted women as part of its
minyans since 2011. Beth Tzedec briefly withdrew from the
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism in 2008, but rejoined in 2014. == In popular culture ==