City Shul was founded to serve the growing Jewish population in downtown Toronto.

[4] City Shul includes members who are visible minorities, LGBT, Jews-by-choice and people with no Jewish background.

The service is conducted primarily in Hebrew, and the shul uses a prayer book called Siddur Shirat Halev (Song of the Heart), which was developed in a four-year project with more than 70 congregants involved and designed by Baruch Sienna.

Shirat HaLev includes commentary, art and poetry, and is adapted with permission from the Central Conference of American Rabbis prayer book Mishkan T'filah, World Union Edition: A Progressive Siddur.

City Shul was formally accepted as a member of the Union for Reform Judaism in December 2013.