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Sept. 14, 2007
Har El marks its first decade
Synagogue celebrates the legacy of a permanent home.
KELLEY KORBIN
There is no doubt it is a magnificent, modern building completely
at home in its idyllic creekside setting – so much so that
you might be hard-pressed to believe that just a little more than
a decade ago, the land beneath this beautiful synagogue was not
much more than a derelict gully in the midst of intersecting highways.
Har El congregants, who recently celebrated the synagogue's 10-year
anniversary, recalled that old appliances and all manner of garbage
were pulled out of the site before construction crews could even
begin to reclaim the land beneath their synagogue. But in a story
that has many parallels in Jewish history, the North Shore Jewish
community, which had been on the move from church basements and
rented buildings all over the North Shore since 1957, was not about
to let a neglected piece of property ruin its vision for a building
of its own.
Although the community had dreamed of having a sanctuary and a permanent
school for many years, it took the gumption of a small group of
dedicated members, led by then-president Norman Greenberg, to get
the project off its feet and see it through to fruition.
Greenberg put aside his own business to devote himself full-time
to the creation of the new shul. He said that, despite the problems
with the site, he always believed the location would be an excellent
place for a synagogue, "because I always try to see 25 to 100
years into the future."
He was able to persuade the community to see things his way, but
it wasn't easy. He explained, "You know when you have one Jew,
you have one opinion, you have two Jews, you have five opinions,
you have five Jews, you have 100 opinions. So I said, 'I can't put
up with this, if you want a synagogue, make me the president and
I'll build you a synagogue.' "
First, the community needed to acquire some land. The site at Taylor
Way and Highway 1 was owned by British Pacific Properties, who had
considered it unfit for development because of its condition, but
agreed nonetheless to let the community pursue the idea of building
on it.
Numerous meetings with what Greenberg described as "every agency
you can imagine," including those from municipal, provincial
and federal governments, along with some very creative reclamation
work by, among others, landscape architect and congregant Richard
Stevenson, ensured that the land was stabilized and, more importantly,
restored Brothers Creek (which bisects the property), so it could
once again sustain wildlife and salmon spawning. This, along with
the support of some very generous donors, enabled construction of
the building to begin.
Architect Mark Ostry, whose firm, Acton Ostry, designed the Har
El building, pointed out that this was a very special project, not
just because of the challenges of the site, but because synagogues
don't get designed very often. For Ostry, it was also a meaningful
project as a Jew, especially with respect to the research he did
on 2,000 years of synagogue design and its original source, the
Temple in Jerusalem, on which many of the materials and features
of Har El are based, like the two columns flanking its entrance
and the sloping wall, clad in Jerusalem stone that references the
Western Wall.
Ostry also said he enjoyed the conversations he had with Rabbi Imre
Balla, z'l, who was the spiritual leader of the North Shore community
at the time, "exploring the identity of Judaism through synagogue
design."
He summarized, "It's a huge privilege and an honor to work
on the design of a synagogue. One of the things about synagogue
design is that there are no prescriptions, as there are for, say,
churches and mosques and other temples and, because of that, synagogues
are really of their time and of their place. And I think one of
the successes of Har El Synagogue is it is an expression of its
time and of its place."
It's a notion with which many Har El congregants would agree, as
they traverse the footbridge leading from the parking lot across
the creek to the synagogue entrance. But more important to most
of them is what having a permanent home has brought to the community
itself. Longtime North Shore Jewish community member Albert Amar
noted that having a building has "changed the community, increased
the membership. In the beginning, we were not even 100 families.
Right now, in the new building, we have 250 families." He said
that he thinks it's in our natures to want permanency.
"Always, we Jews have been moving," he reflected. "For
5,000 years, we always have been moving from place to place, until
we find our own location. Now, we have found it and we are very
proud to have it, even if we still have a mortgage."
Kelley Korbin is a freelance writer living in West Vancouver.
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