More than 200 former members of Toronto’s Congregation Bnai Torah have moved to Israel since the synagogue was established in 1961.
Some of them gathered at the Shimon Hatzaddik Synagogue in Jerusalem on March 12 to reunite with current synagogue members, 35 of whom had just wrapped up a tour of Israel on the occasion of the synagogue’s 50th anniversary.
From Feb. 20 to March 3, the mission toured the country, visiting the reconstructed Hurva Synagogue in the Old City, which was destroyed by the Jordanians in 1948; the synagogue in Zippori, site of Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi’s editing of the Mishnah, and Tunisian Synagogue Ohr Torah in Acco. The reunion party in Jerusalem was the high point of the group’s 10-day mission.
“The atmosphere is electric,” said 50th anniversary celebration chair Jack Kahn at the reunion. “People are coming tonight that we haven’t seen in 20 or 30 years, all of them hugging and kissing each other. It’s an unbelievable experience.”
A past president of Bnai Torah, located on Patricia Avenue, Kahn has been a member for the last 42 years.
The reunion was equally emotional for former synagogue members who reside in Israel, including Yehuda Poch, director of communications at One Family Fund, the Jerusalem-based organization dedicated to helping Israel’s victims of terror.
Poch made aliyah in 1997, at the age of 26, ending a 20-year membership to Bnai Torah. His three brothers and parents followed him. He was pleasantly surprised to find a huge photograph of him and one of his brothers in the synagogue’s foyer on the night of the reunion.
Poch said the photo took him back to 1980, when he was nine years old, the year the synagogue bought a block of Toronto Blue Jays tickets and he and his brother won a stadium tour. The photo was taken on the field, by a professional photographer.
“That’s the kind of place it was,” recalled Poch. “Not many shuls would have the idea to get a bunch of baseball tickets and take the congregation to a baseball game together. It’s one of my fondest memories.”
Poch remembers the synagogue’s annual picnic with fondness. “The entire membership showed up,” he said. “It was the most fun thing people could look forward to the whole year.”
Former member Jonah Pressman also has happy childhood memories of Bnai Torah. He joined the shul as an 11-year-old in the mid-1970s, when his family moved from Montreal to Toronto. He was a member until he made aliyah four years ago.
“I had my bar mitzvah in the shul and so did my two sons,” said Pressman, who now lives in Beit Shemesh. The reunion was a great opportunity not only to meet with current members on tour but also to meet with former members now living in Israel, he said.
“We usually only see each other when someone from the synagogue passes away and we meet at the funeral. This time we got together for a phenomenal simchah. It was great!”
Poch and Pressman are in good company among former Bnai Torah members who came to Israel. They include the late Henry Weinberg, the only Canadian Jew who was a member of the Knesset; David Weinberg, director of the Israel office of the Canada-Israel Committee, and two of the shul’s former leaders, Rabbi Shlomo Jakobovits, brother of former British Chief Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits, and Rabbi Sholom Gold, who now serves as rabbi emeritus at one of the largest shuls in Har Nof and as dean of the Avrom Silver Jerusalem College for Adults.
What accounts for the number of of synagogue Bnai Torah members who have made aliyah? David Woolf, co-chair of the mission and longtime shul member, said that “somehow, without preaching or promoting, we have a large population that moved here.
“[The synagogue] was just such a wonderful place to bring up children,” said Woolf, who has two children and four of his 13 grandchildren living in Israel. “It was very accepting. There was a tremendous amount of chesed and open homes. It was welcoming and giving, and fostered a positive attitude toward both Judaism and Israel.”
The community atmosphere can be credited in part to the influence of the synagogue’s longtime Rabbi Raphael Marcus, who died of cancer in 2007 after serving as Bnai Torah’s leader for 27 years.
“But it wasn’t just [his] leadership,” Poch said. “The members of the synagogue were [always] geared toward religious Zionism.”
Rabbi Yirmiya Milevsky, who became the leader of Bnai Torah about a year ago, concurred. “This is a community of very devoted people. They are devoted to the needs of the Jewish people and the Jewish state, and they are committed to Jewish values,” says Rabbi Milevsky, who participated in the mission. “It is a privilege and an honour for me to join this community.”
While members are proud of the synagogue’s aliyah record, it is a double-edged sword. The challenge now facing the community is its dwindling membership, particularly of young families.
Bnai Torah’s membership has declined from 350 families at its height to 200 to 250 in recent years. The community is taking measures – including mortgage assistance, get-togethers and rabbi’s classes – to attract new young families to replace those who have moved to Israel.
Although Woolf acknowledges the importance of attracting new members, he said, “I think we did a better thing by building up Israel.”
Pressman, who said he wanted to make aliyah since he was seven years old, agrees. “Our success is our failure and vice versa. Our failure to keep young people [in the shul] is our success in getting them to move to Israel. We’re building a home, and this [Israel] is our future.”