Photos:Cape Breton Jewish community
Cape Breton synagogue closing
Last Updated: Friday, July 30, 2010 | 7:45 AM AT Comments 16 Recommend 15
A century-old synagogue is closing down and another is threatened as Cape Breton’s Jewish community continues to shrink.
The 109-year-old synagogue in Glace Bay, N.S., is shutting down, leaving Temple Sons of Israel in Sydney as the sole remaining synagogue on the island.
But it may suffer the same fate in a decade.
‘It’s just the fate of things.’
—Rabbi David Ellis
“I think the synagogue on Whitney Avenue should have at least another 10 years,” said Martin Chernin, president of the Sydney synagogue.
Chernin’s family roots in Cape Breton go back to the early 1900s when the area’s coal mines and steel plant attracted immigrants from eastern Europe.
By the late 1940s, Chernin said, there were more than 400 Jewish families in industrial Cape Breton, with synagogues in Sydney, Whitney Pier, New Waterford and Glace Bay. Many families had thriving businesses.
“The next generation came along, the parents pushed them to go to university and become professionals. And they did — a lot of them. And their children after that did the same thing and, of course, they never came back to Cape Breton,” said Chernin.
The Congregation Sons of Israel Synagogue in Glace Bay has about a dozen members. Last year, for the first time ever, there were no high holiday services. Planning is underway to determine what to do with the building.
Chernin said the Sydney congregation has just 57 members, with only a few children, and it relies on a visiting rabbi from Halifax.
Rabbi David Ellis, who is also regional chaplain of the Atlantic Jewish Congress, said the day will come when Sydney will not be able to support its own synagogue.
“It is just the fate of things — globalization, educational opportunities, city sprawl,” he said. “Certain people go to cities and they don’t go to small towns anymore.”
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