Steeles Memorial Chapel is a

not-for-profit A not-for-profit or non-for-profit organization (NFPO) is a Legal Entity, legal entity that does not distribute surplus funds to its members and is formed to fulfill specific objectives. While not-for-profit organizations and Nonprofit organ ...

community-owned Jewish funeral home in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

. Steeles and competitor Benjamin's Park Memorial Chapel are the two primary Jewish

funeral home A funeral home, funeral parlor or mortuary is a business that provides burial, entombment and cremation services for the dead and their families. These services may include a prepared visitation and funeral, and the provision of a chapel for t ...

s in the Toronto area.

History

It was founded in 1927 as the Toronto Hebrew Funeral Parlour, with Elias Pullan as president, by the city's

chevra kadisha The term ''chevra kadisha'' () gained its modern sense of "burial society" in the nineteenth century. It is an organization of Jewish men and women who see to it that the bodies of deceased Jews are prepared for burial according to Jewish tra ...

, the Jewish community's volunteer burial society. The chevra kadisha, or Jewish burial was a volunteer body founded in Toronto in the mid-19th century. Due to the provincial government's introduction of regulation and licensing of the funerary profession in the 1920s, the chevra kadisha decided to formalize itself by applying for a

charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the ...

from the provincial government. It functioned as a

co-operative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democr ...

with surplus funds being given to Jewish charities. In 1937, the Toronto Hebrew Funeral Parlour acquired a building at 331 College Street, formerly the location of H. Ellis & Son Funeral Directors,City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1448, Series 1230, Item 1524 where funeral services would be held. In 1947, the name was changed to United Hebrew Funeral Parlour and in 1954 it became College Memorial Park. In 1977, with the Jewish community having moved north, College Memorial purchased another Jewish funeral home, the two-year old Steeles Memorial Chapel at 350

Steeles Avenue Steeles Avenue is an east–west street that stretches across the western and central Greater Toronto Area in Ontario, Canada. Running from Appleby Line in Milton in the west to the Scarborough-Pickering Townline in the east, where it continue ...

West; the name of the amalgamated parlor became Steeles-College Memorial Chapel and later, Steeles Memorial Chapel.

References

External links

{{Official website, https://steelesmemorialchapel.com/ Jews and Judaism in Toronto Funeral chapels 1927 establishments in Ontario