Two houses were eventually purchased in the Kensington Market area, and in their place construction was completed on the current twin-domed Byzantine Revival building in 1927.

Some of the families had been members of Shaarei Tzedek, then on Centre Street, but had left in a dispute over burial rites and formed a new congregation, Chevra Rodfei Sholem.

[3] As the congregation grew to 50 members, it raised sufficient funds, in 1917, to purchase a house, with a $6,000 mortgage, at 25 Bellevue Avenue.

The new location was on the outskirts of Kensington Market, which was becoming a bustling Jewish neighbourhood as immigrants gradually lifted themselves out of the abject poverty of the Ward and moved west.

[7] The sanctuary's interior was illuminated by geometric stained-glass windows, featured brass ornamentation and was dominated by a huge hand-carved Torah ark,[5][6] acquired in 1931.

However, due to the Jewish community's migration away from Kensington Market and north up Bathurst Street in the 1950s and 1960s, the congregation was declining and experiencing financial difficulties.

In 1973, the Archives Committee of the Canadian Jewish Congress Central Region decided to help preserve the Kiever stating that "the community should have the building not only for its inherent historical value, but also because it would provide a physical environment where youth could identify their roots, to see their parents’ milieu and what motivated previous generations.

[5][6] The designation states that the Kiever is historically unique because of its distinctive architectural features and because "it was the first synagogue built by Ukrainian Jews who had escaped from Czarist Russia.

[14] The Kiever Synagogue, Anshei Minsk (also in Kensington Market), and Shaarei Tzedec are the only historic Orthodox congregations remaining of at least 40 that existed in downtown Toronto in the early 1930s.