The small wooden synagogue of Winnipeg Beach is the last functioning Manitoba synagogue outside of the City of Winnipeg. The town of Winnipeg Beach located on the west shore of Lake Winnipeg, has been a long-time summer resort area for Winnipeg’s Jewish community of about 16,000. In 1950 a group of Lake Winnipeg summer residents bought a one-room log cabin which they converted into a shul and moved to Winnipeg Beach on Grove and Hazel.

The Winnipeg Beach Synagogue is an important building in our history because it is part of the story of both antisemitism in Manitoba, and inclusion in a community that became a place where Jewish people not only vacationed but were significant community leaders and business owners.

Historian Dale Barbour wrote of Winnipeg Beach. “Although in the Beach’s early years, some establishments would only serve patrons of British ethnic origins—the self-anointed cultural leaders of the resort—some came to know it as the “Jewish beach” since unwritten covenants effectively prohibited Jews from renting or owning property at other beaches. Even here, however, Jews could only own cottages within a little pocket of land before the 1950s. The provincial government’s condemnation of some anti-Semitic incidents in the 1960s, including the painting of a swastika on a synagogue, revealed that societal norms had changed.”

In 1998 the Town of Winnipeg Beach passed an ordinance requiring all buildings to have indoor plumbing. It was decided to avoid the burdensome cost of meeting the requirement by moving the shul a little further north to Camp Massad, a Hebrew speaking summer camp for Jewish children age 7 to 16. The Camp is said to be the only Hebrew immersion residential summer camp in all of North America.

For many years, Shabbat services were led by Rabbi Peretz Weizman, Winnipeg’s senior rabbi, who used to have a cottage at Winnipeg Beach. It has been a number of years since Rabbi Weizman sold his cottage. (He moved to Toronto permanently last December.) Services today are led by volunteers, and Borzykowski said there are no membership dues.

The shul has always been a summer-only institution. For years, there used to be twice-daily minyans, in addition to Shabbat services, throughout the summer. Now, the shul only has services on Shabbat through July and August at 10:00 AM Saturday.

Historic photos of Camp Massad