Last updated: September 20, 2026
Published September 21, 2026 · Updated September 21, 2026
Yes. Sunday morning Shacharit and breakfast at the Thornhill Israeli Centre begins at 9:00am at 7700 Bathurst St, Unit 1, in Promenade Village, and a full breakfast follows immediately after. There is nothing to join, nothing to pay, and nobody at the door with a list. You walk in, you daven (or you sit), and then you eat.
- Shacharit is at 9:00am every Sunday at The Israeli Centre, 7700 Bathurst St, Unit 1, Promenade Village, Thornhill, followed by a full breakfast.
- Tefillah is Nusach Edot HaMizrach, the Sephardic nusach most Israeli families in Thornhill and Vaughan grew up hearing at home.
- There is no membership at The Israeli Centre and no fee for Sunday morning. The only fixed prices anywhere in the Centre are the $18 Rosh Chodesh hafrashat challah evening for women and the donation tiers of $18, $36, $180, $360 and $1,000 at merkazisraeli.com/donate.
- Weekday Shacharis is 8:45am and Mincha with Arvit is 7:00pm, so Sunday’s 9:00am is the one morning the clock moves later on purpose.
- Shabbat, yom tov and holiday times change every week and are never printed here: see the calendar at merkazisraeli.com/calendar.
- Kollel Zichron Avraham learns Masechet Yoma nightly 8:15 to 9:00pm with Rabbi Moshe Gershon as Rosh Kollel, and every attendee (men) receives a $300 monthly stipend.
The Short Answer: Sunday Morning Shacharit and Breakfast at the Thornhill Israeli Centre
Sunday morning Shacharit at the Thornhill Israeli Centre starts at 9:00am, runs in Nusach Edot HaMizrach, and is followed by a full breakfast in the same room, every single week. You do not register, you do not RSVP, and you do not need to bring anything. If you own tefillin, bring them. If you don’t, come anyway and sit.
If you are an Israeli family in Thornhill Woods, Bathurst Manor, Richmond Hill or North York, and the weekday 8:45am minyan is impossible because of work and school drop-off, Sunday at 9:00 is the one that was built for you. That is the whole idea behind the hour. Nobody is testing you at the door.
The Full Answer
Why Sunday Shacharit is at 9:00am and not at dawn
The Israeli Centre davens weekday Shacharis at 8:45am and Mincha with Arvit at 7:00pm, so Sunday’s 9:00am start is deliberately the latest morning of the week. Fifteen minutes does not sound like much. On a Sunday in Thornhill it is the difference between coming and not coming.
The pattern we see most: people who cannot get to a weekday minyan will absolutely get to a Sunday one, because there is no bus to catch and no meeting at 9:30. By the time you have parked at Promenade Village and walked in, the room is already filling. Nobody arrives insulted that you came at 9:04.
What “a full breakfast” actually means here
A full breakfast after Sunday Shacharit at The Israeli Centre means a sit-down meal, not a plate of cookies beside an urn. This is a Sephardic Israeli house, and breakfast is treated the way breakfast is treated in Israel: you sit, you eat properly, you talk, and then somebody brings out more.
Honestly, the food is not the reason the room stays full. The reason is the forty-five minutes after the food, when nobody gets up. That is where the conversations happen: who needs a ride, whose kid is starting ChillZone, who just landed from Israel in August and does not yet know a single family on this side of Steeles.
Sunday Shacharit at The Israeli Centre starts at 9:00am and is followed by a full sit-down breakfast in the same room at 7700 Bathurst St, Unit 1. There is no cost, no membership and no registration for Sunday morning.
Nusach Edot HaMizrach: what the davening will sound like
All daily and Shabbat tefillah at The Israeli Centre is Nusach Edot HaMizrach. For most Israelis who grew up in a Moroccan, Iraqi, Tunisian, Persian or Yemenite home, this is the version your saba davened, and the tunes land somewhere below conscious memory. People tell us they recognized the Kaddish before they recognized the room.
If your nusach at home was Ashkenaz, you are still welcome, and plenty of people here daven from their own siddur. Nobody is going to correct your pronunciation. That is not what this room is for.
“I haven’t davened in years and I don’t want to look lost”
This is the real question hiding inside the original question, and it deserves a straight answer: at Sunday morning Shacharit in Thornhill, a large share of the room is in the same position you are. The Israeli Centre grew from about twenty-five people. It did not grow by filtering anybody.
Rabbi Moshe Gershon, the Mara D’asra, opened a Thursday night shiur here that began with two men and grew to fifty and sixty. He speaks Yiddish, Flemish, French, Hebrew and English, so whatever language your question comes out in, it will be understood. If you want to sit in the back with a coffee and not say a word, that is a completely normal way to spend your first Sunday. It works.
The practical stuff: tefillin, siddurim, kids, kippah
Arrive around 8:55am
Park at Promenade Village and come to Unit 1 at 7700 Bathurst St. Five minutes early is enough to put on tefillin without rushing.
Take a siddur from the shelf
Siddurim are there. If you would rather follow on your phone, that is your business and nobody comments.
Bring the kids
Children are part of the room, not a problem to be managed. Over two hundred children pass through the Centre’s youth programmes every month, so a noisy six-year-old is ordinary here.
Stay for breakfast
This is the part people skip on their first visit and regret. The davening takes what it takes. The breakfast is where you actually meet the community.
Finding Unit 1 at Promenade Village
The Israeli Centre sits at 7700 Bathurst St, Unit 1, in Promenade Village in Thornhill, on the Bathurst corridor between Centre Street and the Promenade. For families driving from Richmond Hill, Vaughan, Thornhill Woods or Bathurst Manor, it is the same drive you already make for groceries, and Sunday at 9:00 is the quietest that stretch of Bathurst gets all week.
In February you will hear the salt crunching under the door as people come in. In September the door stays propped. Either way, the first thing you notice from the parking lot is Hebrew, spoken at full volume, before you are even inside.
When the Answer Is Different
Sunday morning at The Israeli Centre is fixed at 9:00am, but the rest of the week is not, and two situations change the answer entirely.
Shabbat and yom tov. Those times move every single week with the Toronto sunset, so we never print them in an article. Check the calendar at merkazisraeli.com/calendar before you come. Yom tov also changes the building itself: on chagim the Centre fills with two and three hundred people, which is a very different first visit from a quiet Sunday.
A weekday instead of Sunday. If Sunday genuinely does not work, weekday Shacharis is 8:45am and Mincha with Arvit is 7:00pm. Evenings are where the learning lives. Here is the week as it actually runs:
| When | What | Who it’s for |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday 9:00am | Shacharit, then a full breakfast | Everyone, walk in |
| Sunday 7:45pm / 8:15pm / 8:30pm | Mincha, Maariv, then parashat hashavua shiur with Rabbi Kubiov | Men |
| Monday 8:30pm | Taharat HaMishpacha and Shalom Bayit with Rabbi Moshe Rosenbaum | Men |
| Tuesday 7:00pm | Shiur on bitachon with Rabbi Yaakov Amsalem | Women |
| Every night 8:15 to 9:00pm | Kollel Zichron Avraham, Masechet Yoma, Rabbi Moshe Gershon as Rosh Kollel, $300 monthly stipend per attendee | Men |
| Every Rosh Chodesh 7:00pm | Hafrashat challah and seudat amenim, registration required, $18 to tzedakah | Women |
| Motzei Shabbos | ChillZone, boys 7:00 to 8:00pm, girls 8:00 to 9:00pm, pizza and prizes, season starts 4 October 2026 | Kids and teens, register at chillzone.org |
| Weekdays | Shacharis 8:45am, Mincha and Arvit 7:00pm | Everyone |
One more case where the answer changes: if you are coming specifically to meet people rather than to daven, Shabbat may serve you better than Sunday. More than a hundred people come for Shabbos and there is a kiddush every week. Sunday wins when you want something short, early and low-pressure. Shabbat wins when you want the full room.
Our Take After Years of Sunday Mornings in Thornhill
What people overweigh before their first Sunday: the davening. They worry about the nusach, about whether they will keep up, about whether they still remember where Ashrei is. What actually matters is whether you stay for breakfast. In our experience the people who become part of this place are almost never the ones who davened best. They are the ones who sat down with a plate and did not rush out.
The other thing people underestimate is how ordinary this is for the person next to them. Rabbi Moshe Gershon was born and raised in Antwerp, learned in yeshiva in Jerusalem, received semicha in Israel, has an LLB and a short spell in family law behind him, spent more than twenty years in Bnei Brak and twenty years at the family restaurant in Monticello in the Catskills, and came to Toronto four years ago. That is not a straight line. Very few people in the room have one.
If we told one friend one thing, it would be this: pick a Sunday, not a holiday. Chagim here are wonderful and loud and packed with two and three hundred people, and they are the hardest day to walk in cold. A regular Sunday at 9:00am is the easy door. Use the easy door.
FAQ
What time is Sunday Shacharit at The Israeli Centre in Thornhill?
Sunday Shacharit at The Israeli Centre is at 9:00am every week, at 7700 Bathurst St, Unit 1, Promenade Village, Thornhill, and a full breakfast follows immediately after. Weekday Shacharis is earlier, at 8:45am, with Mincha and Arvit at 7:00pm.
Do I need to register or pay for the Sunday morning breakfast?
The Sunday morning breakfast at The Israeli Centre requires no registration and no payment, and the Centre has no membership fees. The only fixed figures at the Centre are the $18 Rosh Chodesh hafrashat challah evening for women (registration required, and the $18 goes to tzedakah) and the donation tiers of $18, $36, $180, $360 and $1,000 at merkazisraeli.com/donate.
Which nusach does The Israeli Centre daven, and is it Sephardic?
The Israeli Centre is a Sephardic shul and community centre and all daily and Shabbat tefillah is in Nusach Edot HaMizrach, including the 9:00am Sunday Shacharit. Hebrew is spoken freely in the building, and Rabbi Moshe Gershon speaks Yiddish, Flemish, French, Hebrew and English.
Can I bring my children on Sunday morning, and is there anything for them during the week?
Children are welcome at Sunday morning Shacharit and breakfast in Thornhill, and over two hundred children pass through the Centre’s youth programmes every month. The weekly programme for kids and teens is ChillZone, every Motzei Shabbos, boys 7:00 to 8:00pm and girls 8:00 to 9:00pm, with pizza and prizes and about 250 kids; the season starts 4 October 2026 and registration is at chillzone.org.
Sources
- Sunday 9:00am Shacharit and breakfast, weekday tefillah times, location and contact details – The Israeli Centre (Hamerkaz)
- Shabbat, yom tov and weekly schedule times, which change every week – The Israeli Centre calendar
- Donation tiers of $18, $36, $180, $360 and $1,000 in Canadian dollars and designation options – The Israeli Centre donations page
- ChillZone youth programme registration and season details – ChillZone
Have a similar question, or one you would rather ask a person than a website? Call Rabbi MG at 647-588-9967 or email info@israelicenter.org. Better still, come this Sunday at 9:00am to 7700 Bathurst St, Unit 1, Promenade Village, Thornhill, stay for breakfast, or come to a shiur during the week, or come for Shabbos (times at merkazisraeli.com/calendar). The door is the easy part.