TORONTO — Toronto philanthropist Kurt Rothschild and his wife, Edith, will be the guests of honour at Eitz Chaim Schools’ annual dinner May 16.
Edith and Kurt Rothschild
The event, at Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto Congregation, will feature speaker Rabbi Yissocher Frand of Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore.
Rothschild, a board member at the school for almost 50 years, is chair of the World Mizrachi Organization and has served on the boards of a wide range of communal organizations including the Jewish Agency, Israel Bonds, the Jewish National Fund, Canadian Jewish Congress, and UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. His interest in education extends to post-secondary institutions such as Yeshiva University, Bar-Ilan University and a large hesder yeshiva in Israel.
“Everyone knows that Kurt will never turn down someone with genuine needs,” said UJA Federation’s Howard English. “Either he will provide personal financial support, or ask his vast network of friends and contacts to do so – usually both.”
When reached in his Toronto office last week, Rothschild apologized for not being available sooner. “I’m going meshuge here. There are so many calls.”
Rothschild’s involvement with Eitz Chaim – the second-oldest Jewish day school in Toronto, with 850 students on three campuses – stems from “its approach to Torah education and general education,” which reflects his own philosophy emphasizing both Torah and worldly knowledge.
A native of Cologne, Germany, where he was raised in a modern Orthodox home, Rothschild completed high school in London, England, before going to work in an electrical shop there.
He was interned in England with several thousand other young German Jews and sent to Canada, where he spent two years in an internment camp near Fredericton. Later, he studied electrical engineering at Queen’s University.
In the past five decades, the retired businessman – who until 1987 owned a national electrical mechanical consulting company – has seen growth at the school, particularly in its attention to the needs of students requiring special education.
He has also seen much growth in Jewish education in Toronto. “It encompasses a much wider range of the community, and is more focused in the different streams of Judaism, like Reform, Conservative, modern Orthodox, and haredi,” he said.
Rothschild believes this has been a positive development “because it [allowed] each segment to educate their children along the lines which they would like.”
As well, he added, he would not want to “blur the ideology” that separates those parts of the Jewish community, but at the same time, he would like to see “cordial understanding within the framework of their own worldview.
“I believe in mutual courtesy, understanding and all the things that bind us as being good Jews and good citizens, and loyal to the State of Israel.”
Rothschild sees his community involvement as “a very good second career in my life… It gives me satisfaction to be of use to the community and to many private individuals who need help, particularly to help facilitate education of youngsters in Canada and Israel.
“I’m very interested in the welfare of the world Jewish community, and specifically in the physical and communal welfare of Israel.”
A senior citizen “by a long shot,” Rothschild said that, based on his age alone – which he declined to divulge – “I should take it a lot easier.”
With files from Jonathan Rosenblum
