MONTREAL — The Emanuel Epstein Jewish Education Program (JEP) is moving out of its headquarters at 3133 Van Horne Ave. and heading to Cote St. Luc to become part of the Centre Chouva Israel.
The Emanuel Epstein Jewish Education Program’s Rabbi Eli Friedman, left, and the Centre Chouva Israel’s Rabbi Yehuda Benoliel
JEP is an educational outreach program that’s been a fixture in the Van Horne/Darlington district for more than 22 years.
The merger, JEP head Rabbi Eli Friedman and Centre Chouva Israel head Rabbi Yehuda Benoliel said in a recent interview, is a reflection of an increasing blurring of the language distinctions between those affiliating with JEP, which historically has had an Ashkenazi base, and the Centre Chouva Israel, which is Sephardi.
While Chouva affiliation is mostly made up of younger Sephardi singles and couples, Rabbi Benoliel suggested that English is increasingly the main language used by a growing number.
The Chouva centre location on Parkhaven Avenue near Kildare Road, he and Rabbi Friedman said, is also the logical destination choice for the merged body because of the growing number of younger Orthodox families who are now calling Cote St. Luc their home.
With the language question effectively disappearing, “the coming together of Ashkenazi and Sephardi is no longer the issue it once might have been,” Rabbi Benoliel said. “We will not duplicate each other. The cost will be much less, and it will unify the community.”
For Rabbi Friedman, the merger demonstrates a “true, powerful growth” in Ashkenazi-Sephardi relations. “It was important for the two of them to come together to bridge the gap,” he said, referring to the merger as a “partnership.”
The merger, he said, will take place over an 18-month to two-year transition period, with the JEP offices on Van Horne remaining open during that time.
JEP was founded in the late 1988 as a way to reach out to unaffiliated Jewish men, women and young people and bring them closer to Judaism.
It evolved into an elaborate series of program and activities that include sports, exercise and religious classes and social programs. (Details can be found at the website jepmontreal.com.)
The Centre Chouva Israel was founded by Rabbi Benoliel’s father, Rabbi Asher Benoliel, and has been at its current location since 1998.
The Chouva Centre Israel, according to its materials, serves 300 young families and offers numerous Torah and other educational classes for men and women, operates separate summer camps and Shabbat programs for boys and girls, as well as a daycare centre, and a yeshiva for CEGEP and university students.
The centre also operates its own kolel, called the Kollel Avrechim, and the Centre Chouva Israel has a significant amount of funds set aside for individuals in crisis situations. The centre, Rabbi Benoliel indicated, is also on a continuous search for more space to accommodate all of its activities.
JEP will operate as an “outreach” component of Centre Chouva Israel, Rabbi Benoliel said, and Rabbi Freidman said that while aspects of the original JEP programs will continue to run at the new location in Cote St. Luc after the merger is complete, not all will.
The merger was the initiative of Rabbi Friedman, who said that after 22 years, the time had come for him to lessen his own daily investment in JEP, although he intends to remain involved.
Over the years, he said, more than 2,000 people have attended JEP’s educational, social and sports programs, and many of them eventually became rabbis and teachers.
More important than the logistical advantages of merger, the two rabbis said, the fundamental, common devotion Torah values will guarantee the success of the new venture.
“It is the Torah culture which keeps our traditions alive, which is everything,” Rabbi Benoliel said.
The merger demonstrates the “true, powerful growth” in Ashkenazi-Sephardi relations,” Rabbi Friedman said. “It was important for the two of them to come together to bridge the gap.”
