![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781148115_461_Library-books-1024x683.jpg\")
Some of the books at the new Chabad centre. (Photo: Zenith Wolfe\/The CJN)<\/p>\nThe opening of a new Chabad building in Ottawa has brought almost 15,000 library books back to the capital\u2019s Jewish community after they spent nearly a decade in storage.<\/p>\n
Chabad of Wellington West was founded in 2022 by Ottawa-born Rabbi Moshe Caytak and his wife, Sheina Caytak, when they moved from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Ottawa with their three-month-old son. The couple co-directed the centre in their home for several years, inviting some of the neighbourhood\u2019s 600 Jewish households to Shabbat and holiday dinners.<\/p>\n
Rabbi Caytak says they\u2019ve raised around $1.7 million to open the new centre, in a heritage building at 166 Huron Ave. N., also called the Connors House, since the start of their 2021 capital campaign. This money has allowed them to rezone the building from residential to institutional and make some changes to the property\u2019s safety features.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a home away from home,\u201d Rabbi Caytak says of the new building. \u201cWe just had an event, the first event after we got our occupancy permit, for Shavuot. The place was packed. There was only standing room in these rooms in here.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says the property will be the new site for the Jewish Youth Library of Ottawa, founded in 1983 by his mother, Devora Caytak.<\/p>\n
Devora originally ran the library out of her home\u2019s basement. But with six years of monthly shipments of Jewish novels, Judaic studies and Chasidic philosophy texts, Hebrew literature, and educational books on the Holocaust, her collection quickly grew beyond her limited shelf space.<\/p>\n
In 1989, Devora took out loans to purchase 192 Switzer Ave., across the street from her home. A preschool was launched in that building five years later, and, by 2017, its attendance hit more than 40 students annually, making the building too busy to accommodate the library\u2019s 15,000-book collection. The books were moved to storage that year.<\/p>\n
Watching the shelves fill up in her son\u2019s new Chabad centre has made Devora excited to reintroduce books to the community that have since gone out of print.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of these books are not replaceable,\u201d she says, adding that they plan to make the catalogue more accessible to modern readers by allowing them to reserve books digitally. \u201cIt\u2019ll be done within the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the books at the new Chabad centre. (Photo: Zenith Wolfe\/The CJN)<\/p>\n
The Jewish Youth Library has the largest collection of any Ottawa-based Jewish library. The Greenberg Families Library at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre is second with around 14,300 books, while Kehillat Beth Israel\u2019s Malca Pass Library has around 4,000 items, including DVDs and CDs.<\/p>\n
Rabbi Caytak says re-opening the library makes him feel like he\u2019s bringing Jewish knowledge into Ottawa homes. He also sees the building itself as a symbol of Jewish continuity.<\/p>\n
\u201cA home that\u2019s a hundred years old is a thriving Jewish centre at a time when antisemitism is rampant in Canada and even in Ottawa,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s a sense of insecurity when you look around, and we see how there\u2019s a Jewish centre being built from the ground up \u2014 that\u2019s a massive statement.\u201d<\/p>\n
The property was designed in 1915 for City of Ottawa assessor Edward P. Connors by Francis Sullivan, one of the few Canadian pupils of prolific American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The city of Ottawa designated the Connors House a heritage building in 1985.<\/p>\n