2011 —

On film.

Films the congregation has made, performances other people have filmed, and the year the sanctuary emptied and everything had to be shot to be heard at all.

Four panels: the choir at the United Nations, the anthems at the Bell Centre, the Pesach medley at the seder table, and COVID Mask at Night on a snowbanked street. — Four of the films below — the United Nations, the Bell Centre, the seder table, and *COVID Mask at Night*.

Playable here

The films

Performances and films that can be played on this page. Nothing loads from YouTube or Vimeo until you press play; the still images are the only thing fetched before that.

Zelermyer in a navy suit and kippah singing into a Canadiens microphone at the Bell Centre, a Canadiens tie clutched in his hand, a caption bar across the frame reading Gideon Zelermyer. — **The playoff anthems**2026 · Bell Centre, Round 2, Game 4

Zelermyer multiplied three times, sitting in the three high-backed red and carved-wood chairs on the Shaar Hashomayim bimah, each with a Star of David above him, all three singing. — **Eight Nights of Chanukah — A Medley**Chanukah 2020

Zelermyer in black tie walking forward on the Maison symphonique stage, the masked players of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal seated behind him among microphone stands. — **Ma’oz Tzur**November 2020 · Orchestre symphonique de Montréal at the Maison symphonique, orchestrated by Chris Hardin · recorded socially distanced in an empty hall for the OSM’s online advent calendar

Zelermyer at the seder table in a matzah-patterned tie, an arm round each of his two sons, all three singing; goblets, plague masks and plastic frogs on the cloth in front of them. — **Pesach medley**Pesach 2020 · with Max and Ben Zelermyer, accompanied by Stephen Glass · filmed at home during Covid

Night view over the crowd at the foot of Mount Royal: the lit stage with orchestra and choir, a screen at left, and the downtown Montreal skyline behind. — **Darker on the Mountain**2017 · Montréal Symphonique, the Cohen tribute at the foot of Mount Royal

The Shaar Hashomayim choir in dark suits, standing in two ranks either side of the green marble rostrum of the United Nations General Assembly hall, folders open, with Zelermyer at the lectern between them and the seated assembly in the foreground. — **United Nations General Assembly**27 January 2016 · International Holocaust Remembrance Day · Ani Ma’amin, with the Shaar Hashomayim choir under Roï Azoulay

A printed card in the form of the Israeli flag reading “I stand with Israel”, lying on a black music stand above red carpet, with a title across the frame reading V’hi She’amda in Roman and Hebrew letters. — **Shaar Hashomayim Stands with Israel**October 2015 · V’hi She’amda · made with the help of many members of the congregation

Made, not found

Music at Shaar Hashomayim in times of Covid 19

In 2020 the sanctuary emptied. A tradition that had run every week since 1887, before a congregation in the room, was filmed for the first time — because there was no other way for anyone to hear it.

High Holy Days · 2020

With the sanctuary closed to most of the congregation for the High Holy Days, The Shaar filmed a series of "Experience" videos — the only way, for an Orthodox congregation that does not livestream its services, to offer something like the experience of being there. Every participant was filmed under social distancing; each member of the choir was shot individually in front of a green screen, and the ensemble reassembled afterward by CGI. The films were released ahead of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Title card over an aerial view of the Shaar Hashomayim roofs and green copper domes: A High Holy Day Experience, Rosh Hashanah, 5781/2020. — **Rosh Hashanah Experience**5781 · 2020

Title card over an aerial view of the synagogue and Westmount at dusk: A High Holy Day Experience, Kol Nidrei, 5781/2020. — **Kol Nidrei Experience**5781 · 2020

Title card over a path through the Shaar Hashomayim cemetery, headstones and flowering shrubs on either side: A High Holy Day Experience, Yizkor, 5781/2020. — **Yizkor Experience**5781 · 2020

The pandemic offered the opportunity to document the look, the feel, the style of High Holy Day services at Shaar Hashomayim — something that otherwise would never have been possible, since the synagogue does not stream its services.

Singing together safely posed a second problem, solved the same season: individual booths built for each member of the choir, letting them perform spaced apart under pandemic restrictions while still working within The Shaar's own sound system — Zomet Institute-certified, and so permitted for use on Shabbat and Yom Tov under the synagogue's Orthodox practice.

Three members of the choir singing in separate plywood booths with clear windows, each in headphones at his own microphone and stand, the conductor in the foreground with his hand raised, seen from behind. — **Building the choir booths**2020 · each singer in his own booth, within a Zomet-certified sound system permitted on Shabbat

The choir also went on singing apart from one another — each member filmed in his own box and the voices assembled into a grid on screen, the format everybody was making that year.

Twelve boxes on one screen: eleven choristers in prayer shawls, each filmed against the sanctuary panelling, and at the centre the cantor in his hat before the empty pews. — **The Shaar Hashomayim choir, apart**Each voice filmed in its own box and assembled into a grid on screen · the whole set plays here

Purim · 2021

Purim fell a year into all of this. It is the one day in the calendar that asks to be sent up, and in 2021 the subject chose itself — two musical satires on the year everybody had just lived through, sung with Conor O’Neil, the Shaar’s Director of Music.

A man in a dark winter coat, cap and gloves fitting a surgical mask over his ears on a snowbanked Montreal street at night, streetlamps behind him, a subtitle reading “I wear my COVID mask at night”. — **COVID Mask at Night**Purim 2021 · after Corey Hart’s *Sunglasses at Night*

Two men in black tie singing side by side before tall carved wooden doors set with leaded amber glass, a subtitle across the foot of the frame reading “They help us forget all our least favourite things”. — **My Least-Favourite Things**Purim 2021

The same year, and for the same reason, A Night @ the Opera began — thirty people on a video call in May 2020, and sixty-seven nights since.

Filmed by others

Elsewhere on film

Material posted by broadcasters, institutions and individuals, gathered here because it is indexed nowhere else.

The S'lichot footage below is the closest thing online to hearing what these services are actually like — cantor and male choir in the sanctuary, at the one hour of the year when the room is fullest of it.

2022 The Streicker Center, Temple Emanu-El, New York — Matti Friedman and Abigail Pogrebin on Who by Fire, with Zelermyer performing. Watch

2022 European Cantors Association — Voice of the Cantor, interview with Alex Klein. Watch

2021 Fenway Park — the anthems, most recent appearance. Watch

2021 Philippe Sands in conversation, Tuesday Night Learning at The Shaar. Watch

2019 A People's Soundtrack — a documentary on Montreal cantorial music, broadcast on PBS. Mountain Lake PBS

c. 2018 S'lichot at The Shaar, filmed for A People's Soundtrack — the late-night service before Rosh Hashanah, sung once a year in the small hours of a Sunday morning. Zochalim v'Ro'adim, P'nei Na, Marom, D'rosh Na Dorshecha, Et Y'min Oz, Mochel Avonot, B'motza'ei M'nuchah, with guest Cantor Michael Moshkovitz. Watch · cantorial.org

2017 Adon Olam medley, The Hampton Synagogue — a seventieth birthday tribute to Naftali Herstik, sung by Herstik himself with Azi Schwartz, Netanel Hershtik, Chaim David Berson, Netanel Baram and Zelermyer. The most-watched recording of his singing anywhere. Watch

2011 · 2017 Yeshurun Central Synagogue, Jerusalem — excerpts from the Independence Day cantorial concerts, posted by others. Ocheinu (Gentshof), 2011, and Yossele Rosenblatt's Mimkomcha, 2017. YouTube

2013 The Three Tenors, Park Avenue Synagogue, New York — a Passover medley with Azi Schwartz and Chaim David Berson, under Stephen Glass. Watch

2011 Fenway Park — the anthems, first appearance. Watch

Anything missing, miscredited or wrongly dated here — corrections are welcome.