Gloria Silverman – former rebbetzin of Beth Jacob Synagogue in Hamilton, a teacher and then principal of its Hebrew school, and longtime yoetzet (adviser) at Camp Ramah -in Canada – died Dec. 10 at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton, following a lengthy illness. She was 71.
Silverman “found her own way into Jewish life” as a teenager in a Conservative congregation in Bridgeport, Conn., where she grew up.
She met her husband, Rabbi Israel Silverman – then a widower with four small children– when she was on staff at a now-defunct Camp Ramah in New England in 1962, said her daughter Aviva. They married the following year, and had one more child.
Rabbi Silverman, who died five years ago, was serving a congregation in Boston at the time the couple met. He was spiritual leader of Beth Jacob from 1966 to 1996.
The family moved to Hamilton following a two-year stint in New York, where Rabbi Silverman worked for the Jewish Theological Seminary. Gloria had studied at what used to be known as its Teachers Institute.
Aviva Silverman recalls her mother as a “doer” who was in the habit of seeing voids and filling them.
Netta Zweig, Ramah’s administrative director and development co-ordinator, remembers Silverman heading to the camp kitchen and preparing Shabbat dinner for 500 when the chef quit on a Friday, she wrote in an e-mail to the Ramah community informing them of Silverman’s death.
Former Ramah director Rabbi Mitchell Cohen, now with the National Ramah Commission in New York, told The CJN that Silverman was “the guiding force keeping [the camp] strong on its educational principles. She mentored new directors including myself… She understood every aspect of the camp – it’s very rare in a person – and she understood educational priorities. But, also, I’ll just remember her and her husband for their menschlich qualities – as sweet, kind, caring people.”
The Silvermans were fixtures at Camp Ramah from 1975 until2002. Rabbi Silverman served as rabbi-in-residence, while Gloria advised counsellors, unit heads and the camp director. For a few years, she ran the camp office over the winter.
A doting grandmother of 16, Silverman took each of her grandchildren, with the exception of the four youngest, on a trip planned around their individual interests for their 10th birthdays. She took two grandsons to Florida to see the Toronto Blue Jays in spring training.
On her own, she was an adventurous traveller, visiting Israel as a young woman and later going to the Grand Canyon, Alaska, Australia and Morocco, recalled her daughter Devorah in a eulogy. To prepare for a trip to Utah, Silverman trained for weeks so that she would be able to hike along with the rest of her group, Devorah added.
At the synagogue, in addition to her involvement with the Hebrew school, Silverman was active in its Out of the Cold program and other social action projects. As well, she taught sisterhood classes in Jewish text study, and organized sisterhood programs.
The first woman to wear a tallit at Beth Jacob, Silverman was also an innovator educationally, developing an educational program for older teenagers, Devorah said.
She leaves her son Judah, of Ottawa; daughters Lanie Goldberg, of Hamilton; Aviva, of Thornhill; Riva, of Norwalk, Conn.; and Devorah, of Teaneck, N.J.; and 16 grandchildren. She was predeceased by her husband Rabbi Israel Silverman, her brothers Howard Sussman of Hawaii, and Allan Sussman of Connecticut.
Ramah alumni are invited to submit e-mail reflections on Silverman’s impact, at [email protected]. Some of them may be included in an upcoming book on the history of Ramah at 60, said Rabbi Cohen. As of press time, the deadline was set for the end of January.