Anshei Ozeroff

1943 - 1962
5244 St. Urbain

Historic outline

The Anshei Ozeroff represents a typical landsmanshaft shul. Like the landsmanshaftn, the immigrant mutual aid societies, the landsmanshaft shul was formed by people from the same cities or towns dedicated to lending support to each other in their adopted city. The congregation was established in 1918 and occupied several rented buildings, east and west of Boulevard St. Laurent, converted to function as a synagogue. In the 1960s the congregation built a synagogue in the post-war suburb of Snowdon. Finally, with a dwindling membership, the exclusive landsmanshaft association was abandoned when the congregation merged with the Adath Israel Poele Zedek in 2003, at 233 Harrow Road in Hampstead.

Physical description

The buildings used by the Anshei Ozeroff congregation, until their final move in the sixties to Avenue Bourret, were converted commercial or residential buildings. Despite the wording on the cover of their 25th anniversary publication which announces “The Opening of our Newly Erected Synagogue,” the building at 5244 St. Urbain was one of two identical row houses which was extended in the rear and renovated to serve as a synagogue. The façade was identified as a synagogue only by the door which featured applied magen davids and the name of the congregation in Hebrew. In the rear of the building a round window, which once illuminated the space above the aron hakodesh, can still be seen.

Former members described the interior of this synagogue. A small entrance area included stairs leading up to the women’s gallery. The sanctuary had the traditional layout with a central bimah facing the aron hakodesh. As in many of these small congregations, the members had a hand in building the interior components. Sam Birenbaum, the secretary of the shul and a carpenter by trade, carved the lions on top of the arch.

Written by Sara Tauben

Links

Liens

Congregation Adath Israel Poale Zedek Anshei Ozeroff
Traces of the Past

Sources

Tauben, Sara Ferdman. "Aspirations and Adaptations: Immigrant Synagogues of Montreal, 1880s-1945." Masters Thesis. Concordia University, 2004.

Tauben, Sara Ferdman. Traces of the Past: Montreal's Early Synagogues. Montréal: Véhicule Press, 2011.

*Images courtesy of Jean Zwirek, Rachel Birenbaum, and Sara Tauben.

Media

Media