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March 15, 2002
Continuity through education
Rabbis Berman and Greene try to make a difference in Lower Mainland.
KYLE BERGER REPORTER
In a new series, the Bulletin talks to rabbis who have
come to the B.C. community in recent years who may not be standing
behind a dais, but who influence the community in profound ways,
nonetheless.
Rabbi Avi Berman has found himself caught between a rock and a hard
place. Seven months ago, his family moved from a 220-family settlement
in Shilo, Israel, just 25 minutes from Jerusalem, to come to work
in Vancouver. Since then, he has found it very difficult to be away
from his home, parents and siblings who have faced serious threats
of terrorism in the past several months.
“My parents and siblings were almost killed this week in a
terror attack at a road block,” he said when asked about his
family in Israel. “They were the next car in line to be shot
and thank God they got out of there but my parents called me all
shaken up.
“I miss my parents and my five siblings and brothers-in-laws
and sisters-in-laws and friends,” he added. “Being away
from Israel at such times is very tough.”
However, if you asked him if he would want to leave Vancouver to
go back to the place he lived for 17 years, a similarly uneasy look
would appear on his face. Not because he wouldn’t want to be
in Israel, but because he has become attached to aspects of life
in Vancouver.
Berman is the director of the National Congress of Synagogue Youth
(NCSY) for Western Canada. NCSY, which has chapters throughout North
America, provides educational and social programming for high school-aged
Jewish youth. The idea of ever having to leave his NCSYers to go
back to Israel is upsetting to him.
“We originally said we wanted to come here for three years
but it’s not going to be easy to leave here,” he said.
“After making such a connection with the kids and actually
falling in love with them, it’s not going to be easy to pick
up and leave.”
In the short time that he has been here, Berman has built a solid
foundation with the NCSY program locally.
With only 10 regular participants involved when he arrived, Berman
now figures there are approximately 50 youth who regularly attend
NCSY events or hang out in the new youth lounge at Schara Tzedeck.
While last year there were only 15 delegates from Vancouver at the
youth group’s Winter Regional Convention, this year’s
event hosted 50 participants from British Columbia.
Before moving, Berman was running a post-high school program for
visiting South African, Australian and Canadian participants in
Israel, which was forced to close as interest dropped due to rising
violence in the area.
At that point, Berman and his wife, P’nina, decided it was
the right time for his young family to experience life outside of
Israel for a few years.
Several offers later, Berman accepted a three-pronged job based
at Schara Tzedeck that involved NCSY, leading youth programming
at the shul and teaching for the Ohel Ya’Akov Community Kollel.
But, of all his responsibilities, it his work with NCSY that has
become closest to his heart.
“I really love the kids and I love NCSY here.” he said.
“Even when I took my kids to Disneyland for a few days I couldn’t
wait to get back to work.”
Information about NCSY can be found on the web at www.vncsy.org.
Lessons on survival
As far as Rabbi Shmulie Greene is concerned, he’s on a mission.
And, although he doesn’t have any plans to save the world from
evil and his “base” is Eitz Chaim Synagogue rather than
some underground hideaway, he takes his assignment very seriously.
“My mission is to enlighten Jews to Judaism,” he said confidently,
“And I will be anywhere that I can fulfill my goals in life.”
And so, the graduate of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz’s Yeshivah in Israel
has spent the past year and a half of his mission in the Richmond
Jewish community as the full-time acting rabbi of Eitz Chaim while
regular rabbi Avraham Feigelstock is on sabbatical to lead the Ohel
Ya’Akov Community Kollel.
It was at Steinsaltz’s institute in Jerusalem where Greene, originally
from Minnesota, realized that his talents and abilities would be best
served as a rabbi who could share his knowledge and passion for Judaism
with others.
“What’s going to ensure the survival of the Jewish people
is knowledge [about Judaism] because the biggest enemy of the Jewish
people is ignorance,” said Greene. “Rabbi Steinsaltz has
instilled this in us.”
Greene isn’t sure how long he will remain at Eitz Chaim but he
hopes that when he leaves, he will have set the Richmond congregation
on a path to becoming a self-sufficient community that treats the
shul like a second home.
“If it’s just a place for people to come to have their bar
mitzvah or to come and pray then it just become a physical building,
nobody’s place or nobody’s home,” he said. “I
want it to become their place and to feel that this is their place
so that they can form it to their image.”
Greene said that it is also the responsibility of the parents to instill
a love of Judaism in their children at a very young age.
“There is a great lack of passion for the sense of community
and because of that, many things fall apart and future generations
will be affected,” he said of young parents. “Because, if
the [children] don’t see their parents getting excited to go
to shul and getting involved in all different kinds of Jewish things,
then the next generation won’t care about being Jewish.”
Greene’s contract with Eitz Chaim is only for two years and he
is not sure if he will remain here beyond that contract.
After these two years, we have to discuss it and see what’s going
on,” He said. “I am always assessing.”
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