Clergy – The Shaar

Rabbi Adam Scheier is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim. He is Past President of the Montreal Board of Rabbis, Vice-President of the Rabbinical Council of Canada, and Senior Rabbinic Fellow of Jerusalem’s Hartman Institute. In 2015, Rabbi Scheier co-edited and published the ‘Canadian Haggadah Canadienne’, which received positive acclaim in Canada and worldwide. He is a founding member of the Board of Trustees of the International Rabbinic Fellowship, a leading Modern Orthodox organization consisting of over 200 rabbis, communal scholars, and clergy. He also serves on the Rabbinic Advisory Board of Yeshivat Maharat, the first institution to train Orthodox women as spiritual leaders. Rabbi Scheier is proud to be the rabbi of the first synagogue to hire a graduate of Yeshivat Maharat. He has been active in international Jewish concerns, and testified before a Canadian Parliamentary committee on the topic of human rights in Venezuela. Prior to his post in Montreal, Rabbi Scheier participated in the founding and development of the first Yeshiva in post-World War II Germany, and has continued to work extensively with the immigrant Jewish community in Germany. He is married to Rabba Abby Scheier, and they have been blessed with five daughters, Aviya, Ayelet, Annael, Allegra, and Arella.

Rabbi Yehoshua Ellis was born and raised in Kansas City, Kansas. He earned a Bachelors of Art in Writing and Poetics from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. After university, he worked as a Jewish environmental educator at the Teva Learning Center. His passion for Jewish education and connection took him to Poland in 2003, where he volunteered for the Jewish community of Poland under the auspices of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. After a year in Poland, Rabbi Ellis moved to Jerusalem to pursue smicha, a formal rabbinic ordination, to better serve the Jews of Poland. Rabbi Ellis earned smicha as a Rabbi and schochet, a specially trained individual in the Jewish community who is licensed and qualified to slaughter animals, from the Shehebar Sephardic Center in Jerusalem while training for practical rabbinic and diaspora relations at the Straus-Amiel Institute of Advanced Rabbinics.

After earning smicha, Rabbi Ellis and his wife Raissa moved to Katowice, Poland. He served for five years as the Chief Rabbi of Katowice and Silessia. While there, he created and led the Association of Polish Rabbis.

Cantor Gideon Yechiel Zelermyer has a passion for illuminating the liturgy through a blend of traditional prayer modes and a modern harmonic palate, creating a distinctive style of service that makes choral Shabbat and Festival services at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim a spiritually engaging and uplifting experience. Gideon is a graduate of the Tel Aviv Cantorial Institute where he studied with Naftali Herstik, Chief Cantor of the Jerusalem Great Synagogue. He completed his undergraduate degree at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Cantor Zelermyer has performed around the world as a featured soloist. He and the Shaar Hashomayim Synagogue Choir have toured North America and the United Kingdom and their series of recordings, “The Music of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim” has received widespread critical acclaim. Gideon has performed with Kent Nagano and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Boris Brott and the Orchestre classique de Montréal, and is frequently heard singing national anthems at Centre Bell and Fenway Park. He is the featured soloist on Leonard Cohen’s Grammy Award winning song “You Want It Darker.” Cantor Zelermyer is married to Michelle. Their sons, Max and Ben, are 5th generation members of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim.

Ritual Director Yosi Even-Hen has over 30 years of experience as both Chazzan and Chazzan Sheini in Montreal. He comes from a lineage of Chazzanim and teachers, and merges many attributes from these two fields into his role. He has studied with numerous Chazzanim, including his father, Rev. Benjamin Even-Hen, and Cantor Aryeh Subbar. To date, he has guided nearly 550 Bar/Bat Mitzvah celebrants, many of whom he is still in touch with. He is a graduate of McGill University, where he received his Bachelors of Commerce degree. Yosi enjoys a variety of hobbies, including a passion for golf, fine scotches, and interesting automobiles. He is married to Brigitte, and they share two sons, Raphael and Nathaniel.

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