Looking to 150 more years

Editorial

When the parade celebrating Congregation Emanu-El’s 150th anniversary this past Sunday stopped at Victoria’s City Hall to pick up the mayor and other city councilors, two First Nations men at the southeast corner of Pandora Avenue and Douglas Street stood watching. When one became impatient and wanted to leave, the other stopped him by saying, “We’re part of history!”

Not “it,” referring to the parade. Not “they,” referring to the Jewish community. But “we.” This short exchange encapsulated for the Jewish Independent the importance and impact of Emanu-El. Without exception, the speakers at the ceremony that followed the parade highlighted the special relationship that generations of Emanu-El congregants have fostered with Victoria’s many other communities.

The tone was set 150 years ago. Not eligible for a land grant from the Crown, the Jewish community of Victoria was helped in its dream of building a synagogue by other faith groups and various residents and societies in the city, such as the Freemasons. In the original cornerstone-laying ceremony, the activities of which were documented in the June 3, 1863, issue of the British Colonist, then congregation vice-president Samuel Hoffman knew the import of the moment: “We are assembled here on an occasion which will form an era in the history of the Jews of this island,” he began.

Hoffman spoke of the Jewish people’s “very rugged” past, but, as current Emanu-El president Mike Goldstein quoted at the ceremony on Sunday, Hoffman also noted, “though dismal clouds may often have obscured the rays of our happiness, circumstances may have bid us this to leave relatives, friends and home behind us to wander forth to a strange land, and there to gain the wherewithal of life; yet, as I behold this scene before me, hope shines more serenely bright, and soft-eyed Mercy sheds a glistening tear – a tear of joy and love.”

Near the end of his remarks, Hoffman said, “Before I conclude, there is, however, one essential thing which I would most particularly impress upon the minds of my fellow members: it is the good doctrine of union and harmony. If peace and harmony be your guiding star ... God will shower His blessings upon you.... As this stone which we are about to lay will be the foundation upon which this structure will rest, so let peace and harmony be the foundation stone of your hearts, without which your structure will crumble into dust, your cherished hopes disappointed, your plans frustrated.” He concluded with a wish that God would “infuse a feeling of peace and harmony in the hearts of my brethren, and that this temple may become a bright gem among the glorious constellation of churches in this our adopted country.”

Goldstein, as well as the Freemasons’ ritual and other speakers, echoed and amplified that “spirit of shalom, of peace and harmony” expressed by their ancestors in 1863. Almost all of the speakers remarked on Emanu-El’s contributions throughout the past 150 years – not just of 150 years ago – as well as the support that the congregation has received from the broader community.

Congregation Emanu-El has survived for a number of reasons, mutual support and a non-parochial attitude key among them. Also crucial has been the congregation’s ability to make very difficult decisions, respecting the past while making every effort to provide a future for their children and grandchildren. When, in the late 1940s, the congregation’s numbers had dwindled and they could no longer afford to maintain the building, they didn’t pack up and leave. They hunkered down, almost literally, covering the architecturally precious building in stucco, putting in a false ceiling, blocking windows and implementing other cost-saving and preservation measures.

While criticized for the ugliness of the so-called modernization, those actions allowed the synagogue and the congregation to survive until better times arrived. And they did. In the mid-1970s, the topic of restoring the building to its former magnificence arose. In 1978, a committee was formed and, in 1979, the project approved. The synagogue’s members once again contributed all they could – as did, once again, the broader community, including, this time, “the Crown.” In April 1980, then B.C. premier William Bennett officially launched the project and, in 1982, it was completed and celebrated.

In 2003, another broad collaborative effort produced Emanu-El’s Fisher Building, an educational and cultural centre located where the wooden school then Hebrew Ladies Hall once stood. And, over the past year, the congregation has almost raised the $950,000 needed to preserve the building for, hopefully, at least another 150 years.

The congregation has not only made tough decisions regarding its physical structure but also its spiritual foundations. An Orthodox synagogue in 1863, the congregation has often found itself without a spiritual leader, as Victoria’s fortunes rose and fell. Over the years, numerous congregants have stepped in to ensure that services were held, simchas celebrated, holidays observed, next generations taught. Now an egalitarian Conservative congregation, members continue to participate and to engage with Judaism and Jewish texts in traditional, and less traditional, ways (art, poetry and music, for example).

Emanu-El is the oldest synagogue in continuous use in Canada. This achievement is not accidental or incidental. Its foundations were laid 150 years ago, when the Victoria community, Jewish and non-Jewish, came together to build a synagogue that could seat more than 500 when the congregation only numbered about 200.

Two cornerstones were laid on June 2, 1863, one by congregation members, the other by Freemasons. Once the stones were pronounced “plumb,” “level” and “square,” the Right Worshipful Master then said, as recorded in the British Colonist, “Nothing then remains for me but to set the stone.” He gave three raps on the stone with his gavel, and concluded, “May this building be conducted, and carried on successfully until its completion, according to the plans, in peace, harmony and brotherly love.”

The foundation remains secure, and the “peace, harmony and brotherly love” has extended far beyond the building’s completion. As United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism’s Morey Schapira wished the congregation on Sunday: “Chazak, chazak v’nitchazek. May you go from strength to strength.”

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