History of the Jews in Vancouver

While some early Jewish settlers ran farms, poultry operations, and sawmills, most tended to work in merchant industries.

Oppenheimer also secured a Jewish burial area in the city-owned Mountain View Cemetery and offered land to the community for a synagogue.

Franks was also involved in the development of Vancouver Jewish religious and community institutions, hosting the first Orthodox prayer services and serving as a founding member of B'nai B'rith.

After thirty years as a boys' club and vocational school, the synagogue was developed into residences and was honoured with a Vancouver Centennial plaque in 1986.

More affluent Jewish families began to settle in the West End area in the early 20th century, centered around Congregation Temple Emanu-El.

The congregation started raising funds for a semi-Reform synagogue in 1911, but World War I and economic depression interrupted their efforts.

However the Temple Emanu-El Ladies Auxiliary continued to hold separate social and charitable events in the West End, as well as a children's Sabbath school, until the congregation dissolved entirely in 1932.

A significant event was the 6–7 July 1921 visit by the Very Reverend Dr. Joseph H. Hertz, Chief Rabbi of the United Congregation of the British Empire.

In 1922 visiting vaudeville performer Jack Benny met Sadye Marks at a Passover Seder in the West End.

Following the Wall Street Crash of 1929, many upper-class families left the West End for the new neighbourhoods of Shaughnessy and Point Grey.

The Orthodox congregation Beth Hamidrash B'nai Ya'acov began in 1943, so its members could be within walking distance of their Fairview homes.

The post-World War II period saw a greater influx of central and eastern Canadian Jews, as well as the first wave of Sephardic Jewish immigration to British Columbia.

The Council of Jewish Women was key in assisting and aiding the various refugees that came post-war, including forty-seven children orphaned by the Holocaust who came in 1948.

In 1974 Rabbi Yitzchak and Henia Wineberg moved from Brooklyn, NY to open the first Chabad House centre in Western Canada.

Chabad also operates in the popular resort town of Whistler, BC with some holiday programs including Chanukah celebrations and Passover Seders Beth Hamidrash dedicated a new synagogue building in 2004.

Several notable members of the Jewish support movement were responsible for the building of banks and clinics in East Vancouver, most notable being Duffy Holeksa who was quoted as saying “I'll build these banks with every penny I have!” Jewish merchants have been part of New Westminster since its founding in 1859 when firms like Meyer, Reinhards & Co. and Messrs. Levi and Boas arrived to supply prospectors for the Cariboo Gold Rush.

Another North Shore businessman was Louis Brier, who willed his Gold Rush fortune to fund a non-sectarian seniors' home, orphanage, and hospital.

In addition to business opportunities, Jewish families and community groups enjoyed the North Shore's beaches, hiking trails, picnic spots, fishing creeks, mountains, and ski runs.

At this time a Sunday Hebrew School started in a North Shore family home, later moving to the West Vancouver Community Centre.

The Jewish population increased with the postwar boom as families searched for affordable land, and as bridges were built to Vancouver.

In 2002, some of the congregation of Eitz Chaim split off to form a new orthodox community which known as Young Israel of Richmond (YIRBC), which closed in June 2015 .

Some Jewish families settled in the area as pioneers, while others retired there after owning summer homes; still others arrived in the 1960s' search for affordable housing.

The area became home to several Jewish cemeteries, including those belonging to Temple Sholom, Vancouver, in 1977, and Beth Tikvah, Richmond, in 1987.

In 1986 the Centre for Judaism of the Lower Fraser Valley was founded,[2] and later opened its first synagogue in North Delta (Chabad Lubavitch).

In the early 1990s a group of families hosted an open Passover dinner, inviting all South Surrey Jews to attend.

These towns peaked in the early 1880s as supply points for Canadian Pacific Railway construction; they are now parts of Maple Ridge, retaining their names as neighbourhoods.

Jewish settlement in the Fraser Valley was scattered, and the nearest synagogues were a day's travel away in Vancouver and Bellingham, Washington.

In the early 1950s, the Rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel (Bellingham, Washington) briefly provided classes for local Jewish children.

Since the 1964 opening of the Highway 1 freeway and Port Mann Bridge made travel easier, Fraser Valley Jewish families have been able to participate more fully in the synagogues of Vancouver and its suburbs.

Cyril Edel Leonoff claims that the interfaith marriage rate for Vancouver Jews in 2001 was about 60%, with 40% of Jewish people formally involved with religious congregations.