Edmonton's first rabbi was Hyman Goldstick, recruited from Toronto in 1906; he was later elected mayor of Edson, Alberta.
In 1928, because the existing Beth Israel was overcrowded, a group of men and women decided to hold High Holiday services in the hall of the Talmud Torah, which had been built on 103rd street, just south of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1925.
On October 14, 1932, under the direction of J. H. Samuels, the congregation was formally organized and Rabbi Jacob Eisen was hired as spiritual leader.
He was also the Edmonton community's mohel (circumciser), and ritual slaughterer (subsequent rabbis would, for decades, also fill all three roles).
Diamond would serve as congregational president until 1938, the same year the synagogue transferred title of its cemetery to the local chevra kadisha (burial society).
The Edmonton Talmud Torah would operate out of the synagogue's location for over twelve years, and later became Canada's first Jewish day school.