This location offers serenity for remembering and mourning, we can experience nature and spirituality together.” Pardes Chaim will eventually be landscaped and maintained to a similarly high standard, he said.Īlso speaking at the opening, York Centre MPP Monte Kwinter called it a “very special day in the community. Both of these institutions predate us by more than 110 years.”
We are surpassed only by Mount Pleasant cemetery and the University of Toronto grounds. “I had at the beginning determined that our cemeteries would be beautifully landscaped and maintained.”Ī survey of the treed areas at Pardes Shalom was recently completed, he said, and “I am proud to report that we are third in the variety of tree species of institutional grounds surveyed in Toronto. There is nothing in Halachah that constrains the beautification of a cemetery. He said that there is no reason that cemeteries have to be “forbidding, ugly places which people are reluctant to visit. I am gratified that has never had to invest a penny toward the establishment of the cemetery, its operation or its growth.” “By November 1972, when some of the approvals had been received, I gifted both the property and the business to the community.”įreedman said that with careful planning and with building the cemetery in stages, Pardes Shalom “was not a financial burden to community coffers from the beginning. In 1970, he said, he bought the land, which became Pardes Sholom, and began the process to rezone the land for cemetery usage. The time had come to make the vision a reality.”
“It would set new standards for beauty, for service and for the correction of abuses.
His aim, he said, was to produce a new model in cemetery usage, and in its administration. It could be run as a business by a corporation, but it could be owned by the whole community in all its diversity.” “It could be run in an entirely new way, in a way that to my knowledge had never been attempted or achieved by any major Jewish community. He said that THMP came into being in 1965, when, as a 39-year-old, he realized that a newly structured cemetery operation could be the vehicle for his ongoing contribution to the community. He studied the needs of the community and found the required lands.”įreedman, a lawyer and land developer, said that it has been 45 years since he started this “adventure, and it is a legacy I will always carry with me.” 10 event, Draimin credited Sidney Freedman, founder and honorary life president of THMP, for being the “person behind the initial vision of THMP. (It also has a community section for the unaffiliated.)Īt the Oct. William Draimin, a lawyer, and president of THMP for the past 20 years, said that the new cemetery became necessary because Pardes Shalom is fully allocated by 75 organizational members, including synagogues, landsmenshaft and mutual benefit societies. in Vaughan, and will accommodate between 70,000 to 90,000 burial plots. More than twice the size of THMP’s original cemetery, Pardes Shalom, Pardes Chaim sits on 200 acres at 11818 Bathurst St. Sidney Freedman, founder of Toronto Hebrew Memorial Park TORONTO - Toronto Hebrew Memorial Park (THMP) officially opened its second cemetery, Pardes Chaim, at a community event held Oct.
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