The oldest Jewish congregation in Winnipeg.

The first Jewish congregation in Winnipeg formed when a tiny group of Jewish migrants met together in 1880. The Jewish population of the city grew to 645 persons by 1891 and 1156 by 1901. Shaarey Zedeck, now having over 1000 member families, is the oldest Jewish congregation in Winnipeg. Its current building on Wellington Crescent was constructed in 1949, opening in 1950.

Architects Cecil Blankenstein (1908 – 1989) and Charles Faurer designed the facility which is a long, light grey stone complex, consisting of oblong architectural pieces, overlooking a lawn and the river. Seating 1500 people, it more resembles a university campus or a government building than a synagogue. It was this building which prompted historian Kelly Crossman (in his article “North by Northwest: Manitoba Modernism, c. 1950”) to describe Blankenstein’s firm as having “shifted virtually overnight from the tepid, uncertain manner common to mainstream Canadian architecture at that time to a confident and well-understood modernism.”