54
The various functions of the synagogue ceased in the 1970's and the synagogue closed finally in 1980.55
No Rabbis after 196717 May 2004
56
In my time, there was never a Rabbi. We had Rabbis who came in - but they . . . We hired them for the holy days and they would come. And we would bring them in, and then we would keep them here until after Yom Kippur was over, the holiest day, and then they would go.We never had a full time Rabbi. And when we had . . . there was a Rabbi in Timmins. And as I recall they may have called on him to do funeral services - to do everybody in the area. Because as I say, if there was a funeral everybody knew it in five minutes because they were all related.
57
Conversion at the Synagogue17 May 2004
Adath Israel Synagogue, Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Canada
58
I. Freedman: At one time it was an Orthodox synagogue and the men and women sat separately. Now, because we did have an upstairs where in most synagogues there is [ the women sit upstairs and the men sit downstairs]; we did not have that arrangement, it was all on one floor. So the women sat off to the side and the men had the rest of the synagogue, ok. And it was a curtain that divided us. It was just a railing and a curtain that divided us - it was a separation. The men had the pews, there were pews, but the men had the pews and they weren't curtained off.And so, we got fewer ? we became fewer and fewer and it got to the point where it became kind of silly because most of us weren't orthodox. We decided that we would become conservative and that we would mix the families together.
Now, I think for Richard's Bar Mitzvah, I think that we were conservative. Because as I recall, my guests all sat together on the same pew.
As it happened . . . that very last year, Eddie Duke arranged to bring some? new? someone who was in the Rabbinaric?who was studying to be a Rabbi.
R. Ormerod: The Rabbinical College
I. Freedman: Yes
I think that he was from Cleveland; I do not know why that sticks in my head and he came up to see where he was going to be, and so he come and he was very unhappy because we had become Conservative and he was really into the Orthodoxy?so...anyway . . . because we were stuck and we needed someone badly, we converted back to, the women sat on the side and we put a curtain up or something like that?
So we went back to this and got through the high holidays.
59
Closing of the Synagogue at Kirkland Lake11 July 1980
Adath Israel Synagogue, Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Canada
Credits:Courtesy of the Ontario Jewish Archives
60
F. Schaeffer: The synagogue nominally remained open until . . . 1979. Last Rosh Hashanah services were held in seventy seven.S. Speisman: Seventy Seven
F. Schaeffer: Seventy Seven . . . I cleaned out the contents: benches, Bema, Hakodesh in February of 1980. The building has subsequently been sold to the Mormons. And that for the time being unfortunately is the end the Kirkland Lake community.
61
After the Synagogue closes17 May 2004
62
R. Ormerod: What was; what was the community like after the Synagogue? (As a focus, I suppose, the synagogue was the real centre of the Jewish community.)I. Freedman:After that, everybody, everybody pretty well moved away, who were moving away. The people who had been, the people who had been the core moved away and . . .
R. Ormerod: They would have been . . . do you remember some of their names?
I. Freedman:The Dash's moved away, The Kokotows moved away, Bill Jacks?and his wife moved away . . . Oh dear, if I had the names in front of me I could tell you, but most of them went to Toronto then . . .
And we just . . . we had nothing, we did not have B'nai Brith anymore; we did not have Hadassah anymore. But, after that there was no organization of anything. If we needed to have ten men for the minyan, they would have to go to somebody's house; If somebody had a memorial, had an anniversary memorial of their parents dying, which we do every year according to the Jewish calendar, not according to the calendar, the English calendar, but the Jewish calendar. They would have to go over to somebody's house, they phone and everybody would go over and they do what they have to do. The women never did; we never had teas anymore, we did not have Hadassah meetings - anything. It just was not there.
63
The end of the Synagogue's Pews3 July 2003
64
When the synagogue was being rebuilt we took out the theatre seats and we had beautiful wooden pews made for the synagogue. And there were only so many of those that could be accommodated in uh, Toronto at the time, in this chapel but there were still some extra ones left and believe it or not the extra ones were bought by the, the Pentecostal, not Pentecostal, there is a church on, on uh Main Street - uh, Donations were made by various Jewish people in town to pay for a pew. And those were built and there was a little brass tablet on each pew. And what they did, they took those tablets off and they mounted them on a plaque. And that plaque hangs in that synagogue at Beth Tikvah. (Marlene remarked, "Oh, very nice.") Including my father's name, cause he had donated a pew.65
Synagogue Pews26 September 2003
Adath Israel Synagogue, Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Canada
66
When we brought the furnishings from the synagogue, at one time people bought their seats in that synagogue. You had a name plaque, that was put on the back of your seat. We took all of these name tags off and we framed them, in a the frame which is in the chapel; and there is a whole list of names there.67
Collection of Joe Atkins1980
Beth Tikvah Synagogue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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