Minyan takes on a second life

Members of the German Mills Minyan meet.

In ancient Greek mythology, the phoenix is a bird that continues to be reborn, rising from the ashes to assume a new life – sort of like the German Mills Minyan.

Just as the mythological creature finds a second life, the German Mills Minyan arose out of the demise of the now-departed Shaar Shalom Synagogue, which held its last services on June 30. One day later, at 7 a.m., in time for Shacharit, former members of Shaar Shalom gathered to worship as the German Mills Minyan in a vintage community centre at 80 German Mills Rd., near John and Leslie streets.Since then, they’ve held minyans each and every morning and evening, with between 10 and 15 worshippers in attendance, said Michael Goldberg, a spokesperson for the group.

They’ve even taken with them from the Shaar Shalom the name they had given themselves – “the minyanaires.”

Almost all of them had been regulars at the Shaar Shalom, which closed its doors as an active congregation because of declining numbers and an unsustainable financial burden.

“I was sad” at the shul’s demise, said Goldberg, who was an associate member in the Shaar Shalom’s last year and a full member for 25 years before that.

“I’ve been an active participant in morning and evening minyans at the shul,” he said. “We feel the minyanaires performed an essential service for those with yahrzeit [marking the anniversary of a loved one’s death] or saying Kaddish or davening on a regular basis. We were there to provide a friendly and caring place for people to do that.”

When efforts to find a new life for the Shaar Shalom proved fruitless, some members reached out to former members of the long defunct Shaarei Zion synagogue.

“It had been dormant,” Goldberg said, but some of its members had kept its registration alive, allowing it to reconstitute and even offer charitable tax receipts.

The newly formed congregation found space “in a little white schoolhouse built in the 1870s that looks every bit the part of a one-room schoolhouse, with a white picket fence,” Goldberg said.

Shaar Shalom loaned the new minyan siddurim and chumashim, while another Toronto congregation, Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue, loaned them a Torah. Services are conducted in a manner consistent with a “traditional Conservative congregation,” Goldberg said.

So far, people are recruited by word of mouth, and there is room for a little more than 50 worshippers in the building.

There is no formal membership yet. “That will come. Initially, we want to get this off the ground,” Goldberg said.

And rise from the ashes toward a new life, he might have added. n