SHERMAN CAMPUS

Employees and volunteers at the United Jewish Appeal Federation of Greater Toronto have a message for those who see them as a small, ethno-centric community organization: This isn't your Bubbie's UJA anymore.

On Monday, Toronto Mayor David Miller proclaimed UJA week in the city and, 92 years after the first, this year's annual appeal was officially launched yesterday.

Speaking on the fourth floor of the newly renovated Lipa Green Building, part of the UJA's Sherman Campus near Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue West, Ted Sokolsky, its president and CEO, was looking forward.

"We're doing things my grandparents could never have imagined," he said. "The infrastructure that we built then was at a time when Jews had nowhere else to go, so they just served the Jewish community. Now when practically every barrier is broken down, we have to build buildings where people have everywhere else to go. It's also giving back to a city that's been so great to us as a community."

As the 20th century dawned, Toronto was a tough place for the first major wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in Europe. Many faced barriers in a Canada much less welcoming and without the societal safety net its citizens have become used to in recent history.

"When people arrived in Canada, generally they were alone,'' said Philip Platt of the Kieltzer Sick Benefit Society, formed in 1913 to represent Jews with roots in the Polish town of Kielce, one of a plethora of societies named after towns in Eastern Europe. ''This way, they could pair up and find each other to create a home away from home."

Societies paid for medical care, provided free loans, built synagogues and maintained cemeteries, said Mr. Platt.

It was from these societies that the UJA emerged in 1917, centralizing the fundraising efforts of Toronto's Jewish population.

"You had a number of disparate charities in place, all doing their own thing. This brought them together, which was a much more efficient way of fundraising," said Ellen Scheinberg, director of the Ontario Jewish Archives, one of the UJA's agencies.

In that first campaign, the small Jewish population scraped together about $30,000. Ninety-two years later, they expect to hit $70-million. Mr. Sokolsky says the sheer amount of money involved may have shocked his pioneering forebears, but they would recognize the values at the heart of the appeal.

"We help people find jobs, provide charity for those who need it most and put a tremendous amount of money into education. That underpins everything we do, but we've seen a transition from a welfare society to a capacity building society," he said.

He said the Second World War was a turning point, precipitating a shift in Canadian attitudes that allowed Jews to assimilate more easily, perhaps even to the point of complacency by the 1980s.

"As we became more Canadian, we paid less and less attention to infrastructure investment. We really embraced the Canadian culture there," he said.

More than 200,000 Jews now make their home in the GTA, one of the largest populations outside Israel and the only major one that is still growing. A strong philanthropic community has allowed the UJA to punch well above its weight. Ten years ago, it established the Tomorrow Fund, a separate, $400-million campaign to build and renew major community centres in downtown Toronto, North York and Vaughan.

Outside the UJA boardroom, pride of place goes to a model of the planned Sherman Campus. Mr. Sokolsky pointed outside the window, where the real thing is slowly coming to life.

"For the last two years, I've been used to showing this with nothing built," he said.

Hidden from the street by trees and surrounded by parkland, the campus is tucked away between Bathurst Street and the Don River. Even in the completed buildings, the signs of construction are everywhere, with ceilings exposed and piles of equipment stacked in empty rooms. The daycare, delayed from opening because of permit problems related to the Toronto civic strike, is ready for its first visitors, with classrooms packed with pristine toys and desks.

The campus is a hub for Jewish life, housing the headquarters of many UJA agencies. The Jewish Family and Child Service and the Canadian Jewish Congress have offices here.

On another floor, the Toronto Free Loan Cassa and Jewish Immigrant Aid Services have both survived since the UJA's 1917 founding. JIAS now helps to settle 650 Jewish immigrant families a year, mostly from Russia and the former Soviet Union. The Jewish Vocational Service of Toronto, another UJA agency, goes by its acronym JVS to reflect its extensive work helping non-Jews find work. The small Holocaust Education Centre brings in 20,000 school children of all backgrounds each year.

Alongside the Sherman model is another one representing the Lebovic Campus in Vaughan, perhaps the most ambitious portion of the Tomorrow Campaign. In 2000, the UJA bought and developed a large tract of farmland, to cater to its underserved community there.

Within 20 years, the UJA estimates that half of the Jewish population will live north of Steeles Avenue, although they tend to congregate around one thoroughfare. Mr. Sokolsky says about 80% of Jews in the GTA live within one kilometre of Bathurst Street.

"We're contained along this corridor, but at the same time we're integrated with the rest of the community all the way along. It's just unfortunate that it's Bathurst, the world's ugliest street. We're stuck with it, but we make the best of it," he said.

The 50-acre project at 9600 Bathurst St. in Vaughan is progressing in phases.

It cost $65-million just to develop the land. A new education centre and sports facility have already opened, as well as a park that the city of Vaughan will share use of. A community centre and conference centre will follow, along with residential housing for the elderly in the next phase. The 10-year grand plan aims to transform the area into a "Jewish metropolis."

For Mr. Sokolsky, the Tomorrow Campaign is a return to roots of sorts, mimicking those earliest immigrants to Toronto.

"As an immigrant community, they immediately understood the value of infrastructure. They built all these community centres, hospitals, senior citizen homes and schools. It's amazing what they built then with hardly a few nickels to rub together," he said. "We're hoping the new campuses will be portals for the rest of the community to Jewish life and culture. I think Toronto as a city and Canada as a country can take a lot of pride in how the Jewish community has evolved here."

This article was originally published in the National Post.

By Michael McKiernan