Drake Names Toronto Club After Jewish Grandparents

Image by Instagram
Jewish artist Drake already has a reputation for being hip hop’s most sensitive rapper.
But that hasn’t stopped him from scoring some more points in the books of bubbes and zaydes across the country. The Canadian-born Grammy winner announced on Instagram last week that his new nightclub – located in the Air Canada Centre, where the NBA’s Toronto Raptors and the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs play – is named Sher Club, after his Jewish grandparents Reuben and Evelyn Sher.
“Rest in peace to my grandparents Rueben and Evelyn Sher,” Drake wrote on Instagram. “My grandmother was the first person to ever play catch with me and my grandfather was the biggest sports fan in the world. I opened this club in the memory of both of you.”
Yes, you may sigh a collective “aw.”
The club, designed by luxury architect Ferris Rafauli, is billed as the “ultimate pre- and post-game destination.” Drake has never been shy about talking about his grandmother and his Jewish roots more generally. Tablet points out that he tweeted about his grandmother’s death in 2012 and put an actual voicemail from her at the end of his 2011 song “Look What You’ve Done.”
This is all coming from the guy who posts annual Hanukkah celebration photos on the Internet and proclaimed his Jewishness in an SNL monologue.
So while they may not like certain four-letter words that feature prominently in his songs, Jewish grandparents everywhere would approve of Drake’s gesture.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Opinion Is this new documentary giving voice to American Jewish anguish — or simply stoking fear?
- 4
Opinion Mike Huckabee said there’s ‘no such thing as a Palestinian.’ It’s worth thinking about what that means
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Think every Palestinian in Gaza is Hamas? This week’s protests prove you’re wrong
-
Opinion A Palestinian Oscar-winner’s arrest shocked the world. For these Jewish activists, it was terrifyingly normal
-
Opinion In the Trump administration and Israel, a grotesque display of virility coupled with a loss of humanity
-
Fast Forward Cornell’s new Jewish president says he is ‘very comfortable with where Cornell is currently’
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.