HAMILTON — Rabbi Zev Eisenstein’s motto was “It’s a beautiful day.” Every morning, he would open the door to the Hamilton Hebrew Academy and greet each student with those words.
And hundreds of students and families would agree that Rabbi Eisenstein indeed made each day more beautiful.
Rabbi Eisenstein was the principal of Hamilton Hebrew Academy (HHA) for 28 years, retiring in 2001. He remained as a teacher until 2011.
On Nov. 26, Rabbi Eisenstein died of cancer in Hamilton. He was 75.
“We were all touched by his acts of kindness and his ability to make you feel like the most important person in the world. This is a storyline that repeated itself countless times over a 40-year history in our community,” said Rabbi Daniel Green of Adas Israel Congregation of Hamilton, who is also dean of HHA.
Rabbi Eisenstein was born in New York City in 1939. Despite growing up in a loving home and attending Jewish parochial school, he bowed to peer pressure and was part of a gang from age 10 to 15. He was usually the one to watch for any approaching police. But when he found the youth group Bnei Akiva, his gang life ended.
When he finished high school, Rabbi Eisenstein studied in Israel for four years. Returning to the United States, he worked at a Hebrew school in Seattle. It was there he met Esther. The two married and later had four children, Chani, Chaim, Betzalel and Shayna, and 17 grandchildren.
Rabbi Eisenstein earned a degree in speech therapy and studied in New York during the summers to become a rabbi. He moved to St. Louis to pursue a master’s degree in speech therapy, while working as a principal of a Jewish girls’ high school.
Wanting to work in a smaller community, Rabbi Eisenstein found a job in Hamilton. He also moonlighted as a mashgiach and served as rabbi for the small Jewish community in Brantford, Ont.
He once said, “I didn’t just want to be a principal who sits in his office and does what he has to. I wanted to be involved in people’s lives.”
And involved he was.
When Jacki and Larry Levin adopted a child, Rabbi Eisenstein stood with them as she was immersed in the mikvah. Later, their four children attended HHA. Rabbi Eisenstein was at their bar and bat mitzvahs and performed two of their marriages. He sat with Jacki’s dad just before he died, and when her mother died, he drove straight from the airport after returning from Israel to visit the family.
“We are so very sad for ourselves, our family and our community to have lost such an incredible man,” said Jacki. “His reaching out to people to help was always infused with his warmth, his humour, his honesty, his optimism.”
Jacki says that at simchahs, Rabbi Eisenstein was always the first to dance – sometimes with benches or brooms on his chin.
“The Zohar explains that in life we meet two types of tzaddikim, righteous men,” said Rabbi Green. “There are those who live in a higher realm, who understand the celestial world, but feel distanced and alienated from the reality of man below. Then there are the righteous who walk beside us. They understand us. They connect with us and hold our hands and firmly grasp the challenges that we face.
“Rabbi Eisenstein taught us through deed. He modelled for us the best a human being could be.”
