

Shaar Hashamayim is now the largest orthodox congregation in Canada; it catered in succession to largely English, German, and Polish congregations. Samuel Meyer Isaacs, Rabbi and journalist, was born in Leeuwarden, Holland in 1804. He was minister first in New York of B'Nai Jeshurun, then in Elm Street in 1839, and then Shaaray Tefilla from 1847 until his death.
In 1857, he founded The Jewish Messenger, and he was instrumental in the Board of Delegates of American Israelites, the Hebrew Free School Association, the United Hebrew Charities, and was one of the founders and first vice-president of the Jews' Hospital, now Mount Sinai. He died in New York in 1878.