This Fri, Aug 7
7-8pm
Outdoors & In-Person near Bloor & Bathurst

(exact location provided upon registration)
FREE
REGISTRATION

ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED for public health purposes
LIMITED SPACE

If it’s raining at 5pm or later, we’ll be online via Zoom
Meeting ID: 955 4183 9308, Password: 024117

Wind down from the week and welcome Shabbat with soulful and song-filled services.

For our community’s and broader society’s safety, we are strictly following Toronto Public Health’s Guidance for Places of Worship.

If you feel unwell or have any COVID-19 symptoms, you must stay home.

Please bring:

• MASK that covers your nose, mouth & chin (MANDATORY!)
• Blanket, cushion, or chair for sitting (optional)
• Siddur/prayer book (optional); we’ll have photocopies of services in Hebrew & phonetic transliteration available
• Kippah/head covering (if you wear one during services)

Seating will be physically distant and there will be separate sections for women’s, men’s, and mixed (all genders) seating, from which you can choose when you register. Since we’ll be outdoors and not in a regular prayer space, there won’t be curtains between these sections.

Any children who come must be able to sit next to their parent for the full duration of services and maintain physical distancing from all others. Children must be registered as well.

Please note that washrooms will NOT be available.

Don’t forget to register now.

Next Thurs, Aug 13
12-1pm
Online via Zoom
Meeting ID: 955 4183 9308, Password: 024117
FREE

What can Judaism teach us about work and workers’ rights? How might this inform our contemporary ethics and policies? Let’s learn and discuss traditional Jewish sources to find out!

EVERYONE IS WELCOME. No prior Jewish learning experience required. Sources presented in both Hebrew and English translation.

Wed, July 29
8:30-10pm

Outdoors & In-Person near Bloor & Bathurst
(exact location provided upon registration)

FREE
LIMITED SPACE
REGISTRATION ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED for public health purposes. Register at https://guestlist.co/events/657516

We’ll also live stream online via Zoom for those unable to join us in person.
(No need to register for online viewing.)
Meeting ID: 955 4183 9308, Password: 024117
In the event of rain, we’ll be online.

Please join us for a powerful, contemplative evening marking historical Jewish loss and ongoing brokenness in the world as we usher in Tishah be-Av, the ninth day of the lunar month of Av. This date marks the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem and other tragedies in Jewish history. It is traditionally observed with fasting, refraining from wearing leather, and other mourning customs. (For more background, see here.)

We’ll pray the brief evening service and listen to the Biblical book of Eikhah/Lamentations, hauntingly chanted by community members. We’ll also sing some songs, kinnot (elegies), and niggunim (wordless melodies).

For our community’s and broader society’s safety, we are strictly following Toronto Public Health’s Guidance for Places of Worship.
If you feel unwell or have any COVID-19 symptoms, you must stay home.

Please bring:
MASK that covers your nose, mouth & chin (MANDATORY!)
Flashlight
Blanket, cushion, or chair for sitting (it’s customary to sit low to the ground for Eikhah)
Cash to donate toward feeding the hungry, in keeping with the spirit of Isaiah 58:6-7, “This is the fast I desire… It is to share your bread with the hungry.”
Kippah/head covering (if you wear one during services)
Seating will be physically distant and there will be separate sections for women’s, men’s, and mixed (all genders) seating, from which you can choose when you register. Since we’ll be outdoors and not in a regular prayer space, there won’t be curtains between these sections.

Any children who come must be able to sit next to their parent for the full duration of the program and maintain physical distancing from all others. Children must be registered as well.

Please note that washrooms will NOT be available.

FYI, the fast begins Wed at sunset, 8:43pm, and ends Thurs at nightfall, 9:32pm.

Don’t forget to register now at https://guestlist.co/events/657516

Thurs, July 30
12-1pm
Online via Zoom
Meeting ID: 955 4183 9308, Password: 024117
FREE

What can a day commemorating events that happened thousands of years ago mean to us today? We’ll learn halakhic (legal) and aggadic (narrative) sources to spark ideas and open discussion on how Tishah be-Av remains relevant and what it has to teach us.

EVERYONE IS WELCOME. No prior Jewish learning experience required. Sources presented in both Hebrew and English translation.

Saturday, May 30 at 9:45 – Midnight

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89017501937
Password: 7EuNef

Makom, TPM, Annex Shul, and Beth Lida are combining forces to bring you a Tikkun (Motza’ei) Shavuot experience you’ve never had before.

As Shabbos ends, and Yontif recedes, join us for a spirited, musical Havdalah followed by insightful and inspiring classes from many of your favourite teachers, all from these four holy communities!

The theme for our Tikkun #TorahFest will be #Bikkurim, or first fruits. We’ll delve deep into this Shavuot-offering, exploring newness, creation, creativity, and how to bring innovation into our lives.

We’re honoured to have classes taught by Makom’s Rabbi Aaron Levy, Lea New Minkowitz, Annex Shul’s Aaron Rotenberg, Beth Lida’s R’ Joshua Schwartz, and TPM’s Dr. Anna Urowitz-Freudenstein!

Excited to receive the Torah with you!

Mon, May 18
7pm
Livestream on FENTSTER’s Facebook page
FREE

Our friends at FENTSTER have installed a new, real-world exhibition in Makom’s storefront window (following safe distancing measures, of course), on view until Aug 14.

Toronto artist Robert Davidovitz created a striking stained glass art installation, paying homage to his roots in Vilna and to the fragile material that buttressed his family for generations, making their livelihoods from repairing broken windows.

The painting Marc Chagall made upon visiting the Vilna synagogue of an influential 18th-century Rabbi known as the Vilna Gaon. Davidovitz reinterpreted the colourful windows in Chagall’s canvas of the synagogue that was later destroyed during WWII. Cracked panes remind us how brokenness is a part of life, undeniable at a time when our existence feels shattered. 

Join the livestream opening for an engaging conversation between the artist Robert Davidovitz and curator Evelyn Tauben, hosted by esteemed international scholar, Dr. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Ronald S. Lauder Chief Curator, Core Exhibition at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, in Warsaw.

Featuring a live performance by the lead singer of the New York-based Yiddish rock band Yiddish Princess, Sarah Gordon, of the poem “Ver Vet Blaybn” by Avrom Sutzkever, which inspired the exhibition title.

Click for more info. 

Tues, May 12
7:00-7:40pm
Online via Zoom or call 647-558-0588
Meeting ID: 835 2443 7272, Password: 016080
FREE

Families with kids! Let’s come together to celebrate Lag ba-Omer – the joyous 33rd day between Passover and Shauvot – with a bonfire, s’mores, crafts, music, and a bedtime story.

If you’re able, challenge your kid(s) craft a medurah (bonfire in Hebrew) beforehand and they’ll get to show it off during the program. (Crafting suggestions below.)

You can also make microwave s’mores to eat during the program – yum!

Questions? Contact Sorel.

Medurah (Bonfire) Crafting Tips:
You can make it flat or 3D.

For the wood: go outside and collect twigs, or use popsicle sticks (you can colour them brown) or brown paper (even from a paper bag), or create a textured base by putting a rough texture under the paper and rubbing over it with a brown crayon.

For the flames: tear up construction paper, tissue paper or wrapping paper and glue or tape it into the shape of a flame, or use markers to draw the flame.

For the night sky: if you’ve used a dark colour as the background for your bonfire, you can fill the night sky with stars using stickers, glitter glue or glitter pens, or even dots of tin foil.

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