Makom is delighted to offer WARM, SPIRITUAL, and PARTICIPATORY High Holiday services fusing TRADITION & CREATIVITY, MUSICALITY & REFLECTION.

For our eighth year, we’ll be gathering in beautiful Hart House for Rosh Hashanah on Sept 30 & Oct 1 and for Yom Kippur on Oct 8 & 9.

Please see below for more details on Main Services, Family Services, Childcare, Tickets, and Donations.  

Click HERE for the Full Schedule.

MAIN SERVICES

Makom is a diverse and inclusive community that welcomes participants who espouse many different approaches to Judaism, from secular to traditionally observant. In order to join together as one community without regard to denominational labels, our main services blend traditional and progressive practices.

We’ll offer men’s, women’s, and mixed-seating sections in our main services; children are welcome in all sections. Both men and women will participate in leading different parts of services, reading Torah and haftarah, and being called up for aliyot to the Torah. We need a minyanto start, so we encourage you to come on time. If you have any questions about our services, please contact Rabbi Aaron.

Services will be led by Rabbi Aaron Levy and guest prayer leaders Joe Gamse and Carrie Watkins. Rabbi Aaron and members of our community will also share inspiring words of Torah.

FAMILY SERVICES

We’re thrilled that Makom’s highly experienced Director of Education, Sorel Goldberg Loeb, together with Rabbi Garry Loeb, will lead Family Services! We offer two family services on the first day of Rosh Hashanah and two on Yom Kippur day. Family services will include prayers, songs, and stories to meaningfully engage adults and children together. Family Services are egalitarian with mixed seating.

Family services for families with children in preschool through kindergarten will run 10-11am.

Family services for families with children in grades 1 through 5 will run 11:30am-12:30pm. (We’d suggest pre-teens and teens in grades 6 and up participate in Main Services.)

If you have questions about family services, please contact Sorel.

CHILDCARE

Full childcare will be provided throughout adult services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Younger and older children will play in separate rooms under our babysitters’ supervision.

TICKETS

High Holiday tickets are fully tax deductible and you’ll receive a tax receipt for their full value. Ticket sales help cover the costs of putting on High Holiday services.  However, we don’t want anyone to be unable to attend services due to financial constraints. If the cost of tickets is financially prohibitive, please contact Rabbi Aaron in confidence.

DONATIONS

You can also pledge an additional tax-deductible contribution when you purchase tickets to help subsidize tickets for those who can’t afford them.  (It won’t be included in your ticket transaction; please donate here.)

SHABBAT in the PARK

Saturday, August 17
4:30-6:30pm
@ Vermont Square Park
FREE | Bring Your Own Picnic
Please RSVP

Join us for a lovely Shabbat afternoon for all ages!

We’ll have fun, Tu B’Av-themed activities and stories for little ones (0-4) and their parents and for school-aged kids (5-10).

Adults and pre-teens/teens will learn with Rabbi Aaron.

Bring your own picnic dinner and a blanket; we’ll provide dessert.

Schedule
4:30 Kids play in park & splash pad; adults schmooze
5:15 Kids’ Shabbat activities; Adult & teen learning
6:00 Dinner – bring your own picnic (not a potluck)

** In the event of rain, the program is cancelled. **
Presented in partnership with Miles Nadal JCC

Friday, May 10

Thursday, May 23, 2019

5:45 PM – 9 PM

Join Makom in in celebrating Lag ba-Omer – the joyous 33rd day of the journey from Passover to Shavuot – with a campfire and picnic in the park. We’ll also be roasting marshmallows and making s’mores, singing, and hanging out into the night.

Makom’s 10th Anniversary Party & Concert

Wednesday, May 29 | 7:30 – 10:30 PM

4Life Natural Foods | 210 Augusta Avenue

Get Tickets

Sponsorship Opportunities

Celebrate the flavours, history and diversity of Kensington Market, Toronto’s historic Jewish hub and beloved, eclectic neighbourhood.  In honour of Makom’s 10th anniversary of revitalizing Jewish life in the Market, we’re taking over a grocery store for a party and one-of-a-kind concert.

Featuring:

• International debut of new music by JUNO-winning musician David Buchbinder with an all-star band fusing New Orleans jazz with Yiddish flavour. Performing with Dave Restivo (piano), Michael Herring (acoustic bass) and Chris Wallace (drums)
• Schmooze with Market Mavens: hear artists, writers and fixtures of the Kensington Market community share their stories from these fabled streets:
  • “Cardener” Yvonne Bambrick, the caretaker of the iconic Kensington Market Garden Car and a co-creator / coordinator of Pedestrian Sundays in Kensington Market,
  • Toronto’s leading historian on Chinatown, Arlene Chan,
  • Author and artist Bernice Eisenstein whose award-winning graphic memoire, I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors (2006), details her childhood growing up in Kensington Market,
  • Danny Zimmerman who worked with his father Zoltan running Zimmerman’s Discount, a fixture of Kensington Market for 60 years until it became 4Life Natural Food
  • Originally from Sri Lanka, Potsothy “Pots” Sallapa, is a long-time Kensington organic grocer who transformed Zimmerman’s on Augusta into 4Life Natural Foods,
  • And more to be announced soon!
• A tribute to Makom’s Honourable Menschen, cornerstones of our community: David Pinkus, Rochelle Rubinstein and more
• Delicious Nibbles, Sweets & Drinks generously provided by our favourite vegan and kosher spots in the Market and beyond
• DJ sets by Mr. Tunes, featured on Balkan Beat Box’s album “Nu Made”
• Raffle with amazing prizes: a chance to support Makom while snagging fabulous swag

Kensington Then & Now celebrates the melding of the past with the present. Be part of the festivities and support Makom’s ongoing revitalization of downtown Jewish life with joyous spirituality, pluralistic after-school Jewish education, and inclusive community.

Updates posted regularly to the Facebook event! Follow us to stay in the know.

Tickets:

In advance: $50 includes a complimentary drink | $20 students / under-employed

At the door: $60 general admission | $25 students / under-employed

Get your tickets today or check out the sponsorship opportunities

Can’t attend but still want to support Makom on our 10th anniversary?

Click here to make a donation

Volunteers attend for FREE. To volunteer, contact info@makomTO.org

Makom is a diverse and inclusive Toronto community fusing Jewish tradition and progressive values through spirituality, learning and culture.  

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

David Buchbinder is a trumpeter, improvisor, composer, JUNO award-winning creator and producer of music and culture working in the borderlands where cultures, peoples, genres and disciplines intersect. He is known for his diverse musical projects the Flying Bulgars, his Jazz Ensemble, Nomadica and Odessa/Havana. He produced Shurum Burum Jazz Circus, Tumbling Into Light and Andalusia to Toronto, and is the founder of the urban transformation organization Diasporic Genius. He’s also the founding Artistic Director of the Ashkenaz Festival, of RCM/Koerner Hall’s signature KUNÉ: Canada’s Global Orchestra, and creator-producer of the recent Luminato Festival hit “The Ward Cabaret.” David’s jazz compositions meld Jewish music traditions from around the world with myriad influences from Hard Bop to Arabic music, infused with an effervescence that results in “fiercely imaginative music that swaggers hard… an idiosyncratic, accessible gumbo” (Toronto Star). David “has a hard, clear, clarion almost classical trumpet sound, but with a jazzman’s phrasing and whip-smart spontaneity” (All About Jazz). David also performs on the Grammy-nominated album, Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of World War II. Makom’s anniversary celebration will mark the culmination of an intensive creation period for David, writing new music in the rich milieu of New Orleans, which he will perform publicly for the first time on May 29.

Elliott Fienberg aka Mr. Tunes has been producing and DJing for over 20 years. In 2009, he was featured on the Balkan Beat Box’s remix CD, “Nu Made” (JDub records). More of his tracks have been DJ’d in clubs in Miami, Ibiza and Cape Town. His style of DJing is a swirling mix of worldbeat and ambient sounds layered over house and breakbeats. For Makom’s party, Mr. Tunes will spin a global groove, drawing inspiration from the many sounds and cultures that make up Kensington Market today.

Thanks to our event and venue sponsors:

Makom is grateful to our generous food and beverage sponsors:

Fresh City Farms | Hibiscus | Kensington Brewing Co. | Kupfert & Kim |  Ozery Bakery| Pantry | Shalom India | Sunflower Kitchen | Sweets from the Earth | United Bakers Dairy Restaurant | Veggie D’Light

Friday, April 12

Friday, April 5
5:30pm – Doors Open; 5:45pm – Services Start
@ Makom
$20 for Adult Dinner Ticket; $12 for kids 1-10
(25% off for Makom Members)

Join us for a family friendly service, Shabbat games and kid-friendly vegetarian dinner!

THIS Sunday, Dec 9
9-10:30am
@ Makom
FREE
Please RSVP

Double the reasons to sing on a Sunday morning: Rosh Hodesh (the new moon) and Hanukkah! Celebrate this extra-joyous occasion with Makom, Annex Shul, and other friends through a lively service featuring shaharit, a musical hallel, Torah reading, and musaf.