Machzikei Hadas | A Growing Jewish Community in Ottawa

Añadido: 2026-06-02

[00:00:04]Kikadas is a vibrant, thriving community. There's always new people that are feeling welcomed and loved, and it's the place to be. Families come to Ottawa from all over. Families come from smaller communities. Families come from larger communities. Families even come from different countries. And they're all basically looking for the same thing. The families are looking for a place where they can live Jewishly and where Jewish life actually works.

[00:00:34]>> Coming from Brazil, we had a little idea what to expect. We had a lot of doubts.

[00:00:40]After being here for for a year, we feel that became like a family for us. This is why we feel so comfortable to to think of it as a forever home for us. I think that what makes the Ottawa community so special is the diversity and the beauty in the diversity.

[00:01:00]>> Regardless of background, regardless of observance, regardless of age, regardless of point in your life, we have something for everyone.

[00:01:10]>> Affordability is a huge reason why families are choosing Ottawa. Ottawa is more affordable than many of the larger Jewish cities in Canada. Uh, real estate is more affordable, tuition is more affordable, even kosher food here is more affordable, and that has a huge impact on families and how they're planning their budgets. Um, it takes a huge financial stress off the families as well. My husband and I moved to Toronto after living in Ottawa um so that he could article um downtown Toronto for a year and we thought we might have to stay there. But sort of after considering all the options, we were able to u make the decision to come back to Ottawa, which we were really really thrilled to be able to do, not only because we love Ottawa, but also because it gave us the ability to buy a home um that really gave us the space to grow our family. Often there's an assumption that smaller communities don't have all the Jewish infrastructure that a family would need, but in Ottawa, we have everything and it's all here.

[00:02:03]>> Our Jewish life is is very rich. Uh we don't feel that there's anything lacking. Um really being from Toronto, coming from Toronto, um like it's provided us with everything kind of we need to lead a rich Jewish life. We have wonderful Jewish education starting from early childhood going all the way through high school. We have dynamic schuls. We have a newly renovated mikvah. We have plenty of kosher options.

[00:02:36]>> So, keeping kosher in Ottawa is not hard at all. There are so many kosher options for a small city. We have two amazing kosher vegan bakeries. We have a kosher pizza shop in the JCC. We have a kosher vegan Chinese food takeout place. It's really it's incredible. Plus, we have several grocery stores that carry a kosher dairy, kosher meat. Uh bread products are easy to find. There's there's so many options out there that are easy to access. So, um it's quite easy to keep kosher. Another thing that um is really really great about Ottawa is having catering options available for Shabbat as well as for the khagim. On occasion um given my husband and I both work full-time and are very busy people um we will place an order for a Shabbat box for example just to give us what we need um to get through Shabbat if we don't have time to prepare or or to really um spend the time cooking. One of the first things we hear as people become a part of our community is how supported they feel as if they now have this big beautiful family.

[00:03:40]>> We were very surprised by the way we were well received um by the community.

[00:03:45]>> So my daughter Nessia was was born a few months after we got here. Um she was born with leukemia. Um, so it was initially very very shocking to us as a family on on so many levels.

[00:04:02]But what we never expected was the amount of initiative taken by individuals and by people in the community to just keep us afloat and to lift us up and to support us. um to the point that it was very hard to actually feel that our life circumstance was was was negative or or or difficult because we we were so so cared for by by the community uh and that had really positively overwhelmed us.

[00:04:34]>> It is it is that sense of responsibility that defines the Moxley community. The responsibility for for every single person in the community >> Ottawa is a place where people don't just relocate to. It's a place they fall in love with. It's a place they put down roots.

[00:04:52]>> Whether you're coming from Toronto or Montreal or from abroad, Maxik Hadas offers a community and Jewish life that is affordable, that is exciting, and is spiritually uplifting. Come join us.