If you want to get involved in Toronto’s burgeoning Jewish community, you’re in the right place.  Doing Jewish in Toronto makes getting involved in our community easier than ever before.

The idea for this ambitious state-of-the-art website sprang from UJA’s Internet Steering Committee, chaired by Art Benjamin and Bob Cherniak.

"This is definitely an idea whose time has come," says Art Benjamin, who with Bob Cherniak, pioneered the Doing Jewish idea. "Instead of spending countless hours on the Internet surfing from site to site to find what you’re looking for in the Jewish world, this site makes community involvement simple."

The site supports a number of sections including What’s On (a community calendar), Community Directory, Volunteer - Local & Israel and Community Jobs.

What’s On enables a person to check what events are happening by date or by sponsoring organization.  On the site, s/he can add an event to a personal calendar feature and ask the system to automatically tell him/her when it has been added. The personal calendar feature allows people to include special dates such as birthdays, anniversaries or yahrzeits. The system will provide reminders for these dates. There’s also a feature to convert dates from English to Hebrew and vice-versa.

The Community Directory lists almost 700 congregations, agencies, services, and groups, including names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mails and Web sites, along with a description of each organization.  It provides a numbers of search features to help people find the organizations or services they need.  Special articles let the community know more about what new or established organizations have to offer.  There is also the opportunity for ad-hoc groups and individuals to submit articles to the site about their community involvement.

The Volunteer - Local & Israel component provides a comprehensive listing of opportunities from organizations representing all aspects of Toronto’s Jewish community. The list includes something for everyone - adults, youth and entire families.

Community Jobs is a free posting service to help individuals find employment opportunties in Jewish organzations.

Doing Jewish in Toronto also offers organizations a set of easy-to-use tools to create or enhance their own Web sites and to post articles for the community at large.

"This site is designed to allow as much hands-on community involvement as possible," says Benjamin. "Doing Jewish in Toronto makes this year the perfect time to plant, reap, and get involved."

Being Jewish in Toronto is Great!  Take the extra step and DO Jewish!  Volunteer, participate, join, celebrate, sound off…and enjoy your Jewish community to the fullest.