Abbreviated History of Don Mills Lodge
In 1956, a small group of men living in the Don Mills Road
and Lawrence Avenue area of Toronto decided to form a
subsidiary or lodge of B’nai Brith Canada, the oldest
Jewish service organization in North America. Several
years ago, B’nai Brith became “co-ed” and Don Mills
Lodge currently boasts many active women among its
152 members.
We now have a much broader geographic base, with members coming from all over the Greater Toronto Area. Since our inception, Don Mills Lodge has subscribed to B’nai Brith’s motto “People Helping People”.
In our early years we raised funds to acquire North York’s first Ambulance, thereby providing the impetus for North York to establish an ambulance service.
Over the years we have become an even stronger service group to the general community. We ran Monte Carlo nights to raise funds for the Muscular Dystrophy and Multiple Sclerosis Associations.
For many years the Lodge has cooperated with B’nai Brith Canada to run an annual dinner draw and operate Bingos in the Toronto area, thereby establishing a means of being able to raise and donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to various projects and charities, including B’nai Brith’s own service endeavours, such as building and operating seniors’ residences. In addition, we allocate thousands of dollars to more than a dozen community requests and charities each year.
Don Mills Lodge has given thousands of dollars to such worthy causes as CNIB, Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, Camp Oochigeas (for children with cancer), International Schizophrenia Foundation, Sheena’s Place (for people with eating disorders), Youth Link, and the Canadian International Scientific Exchange Programme (CISEPO), to name a few.
In addition to fundraising, our members volunteer for community support programmes on a regular basis. These involve such activities as providing clothing, organizing picnics and other outings for needy families.
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Members actively participate in delivering food packages to needy families on a continuing basis, particularly for special festival celebrations. Our members have also been actively involved in many charitable walkathons to help raise funds and awareness for Breast Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) and many others.
1957 - 1958 Manny Widman*
1958 - 1959 Herbert Liebman*
1959 - 1960 Joseph Skolnik
1960 - 1961 Allan N. Lewis
1961 - 1962 Harold Chapman
1962 - 1963 Irwin Borins*
1963 - 1964 Gerald Rafelman
1964 - 1965 Morley Torgov
1965 - 1966 Murray Page
1966 - 1967 Lowell Biderman
1967 - 1968 Earl Segal*
1968 - 1969 Leon Tessler
1969 - 1970 Sam Brown
1970 - 1971 Joe Feller
1971 - 1972 Dave Sugarman
1972 - 1974 Marvin Cohen
1974 - 1975 Allen Werger
1975 - 1976 Murray Stitsky
1976 - 1977 Syd Feldman
1977 - 1978 Maurice Wesfield
1978 - 1979 Michael Brodsky
1979 - 1980 Shelly Goldstein
1980 - 1981 David Grader
1981 - 1982 Howie Cohen
1982 - 1983 Tom Kolin
1983 - 1984 Gerry Rowan
1984 - 1985 Andrew Stevens
1985 - 1987 Harold Bricks
1987 - 1988 Jerry Freud
1988 - 1989 Vic Blackman
1989 - 1990 Gary Feldman
1990 - 1991 Charles Bleier
1991 - 1992 Lou Ginsberg
1992 - 1994 Len Berk
1994 - 1995 Debby Goldstein
1995 - 1997 Esther Saxe
1997 - 1998 Joanne Bleier
1998 - 2000 Hermy Gimpel
2000 - 2001 Allen Burke
2001 - 2002 Eli Goldberg*
2002 - 2003 Henry Gimpel
2003 - 2005 Ken Waldman
2005 - 2006 David Grader
2006 - 2008 Sheldon Saxe
2008 - 2009 Allan Wilson
2009 - 2011 Ava Brodsky
*Deceased
Past Presidents
