Hebrew Academy student gets results at Côte St. Luc’s Singerman Park

Chronicle, Martin C. Barry Ben Bright proves that one young hockey-lover can still make a difference. Here he is getting ready for some hockey at Singerman Park in Côte St. Luc.
This young man had a really Bright idea

Hebrew Academy student gets results at Côte St. Luc’s Singerman Park
BY MARTIN C. BARRY Much as his name might suggest, young Ben Bright of Côte St. Luc is a brainy 11-year-old with a passion for hockey and a determination to succeed at everything. When the Hebrew Academy student learned at the start of this winter that Côte St. Luc officials wouldn’t be setting up an outdoor hockey rink in Irving Singerman Park near his Parkview Avenue home as he had requested, he didn’t take no for an answer. “There was a rink, but there were no nets, so we had to use our shoes as nets and it wasn’t fun,” Ben said in an interview with The Chronicle. So, as almost no one seemed to be using the rink last year for skating, it seemed only reasonable to ask that it be outfitted for informal games of shinny hockey between friends in the neighbourhood.

According to Harold Cammy, Côte St. Luc’s chief of sports and installations, Ben wrote a letter to Mayor Anthony Housefather last November, asking the City to reconsider a decision not to build a hockey rink this winter in the park near Robinson Avenue. “At the time, it had been our decision to construct only a small skating pond,” Cammy said in an e-mail, adding that the rink was initially not going to be supplied with hockey nets. After Housefather placed the matter in the hands of the recreation department, Cammy and David Taveroff, the department’s director, met with Ben, who was accompanied by his father, Rabbi Alan Bright, who apparently allowed Ben to carry the conversation. “After meeting with this young gentleman, it was obvious by his efforts and determination that we would move forward and support his request,” said Cammy. He sees Ben’s efforts as an example of how a youngster was able to put the democratic and citizen input process to good use in order to make a difference. “We installed a second ice surface at Singerman with nets and Ben has been coming out with his friends on a regular basis,” Cammy added.

Ben, who is already mapping his career with hopes of one day being a medical malpractice lawyer, said that he went to the meeting prepared to argue his case, only to find that those in charge had already decided in his favour. “I like to argue, I like to fight for justice,” he said. According to Ben’s mother, Elizabeth, he acted entirely on his own. “We only found out afterwards that he did all this,” she said. “He has an idea or a desire and he goes and reaches it.”

Canadian Rabbi Helps Wounded Troops From Iraq

Captain Alan Bright (USAFR), a rabbi from a Montreal congregation, was recently called up to active duty to serve as the Jewish chaplain at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

For those that don’t know, Ramstein is the main spot for medevacs from Iraq that need critical care as well as the first stop for most bodies before their return to the States. While not the most pleasant duty, serving as the sole Jewish chaplain at the hospital is certainly an important role to fill.

You can read more about Rabbi Bright in the Canadian Jewish News.

Overflow crowd pays respects to Weider

MONTREAL — An overflow throng of more than 1,000 friends and admirers of Ben Weider paid respects to the late bodybuilding magnate at Oct. 20 funeral services that included some of the most prominent figures in the province. Weider died Oct. 17 at age 85.

The names included Jean-Claude Turcotte, Montreal’s Roman Catholic cardinal; former premier Lucien Bouchard; Michel Bissonet, former speaker of the Quebec National Assembly; Senator Serge Royal, and Rabbi Abraham Cohen, fundraising director of the Lubavitch movement’s Chaya Mushka seminary for girls, whose construction Weider financed and who participated in the service.
Also present were officials from the Jewish community, including from the YM-YWHA, whose Westbury Avenue headquarters Weider also paid for and is named for him.

Their presence and remarks testified to Weider’s reputation for building bonds between all faiths and people. Bouchard said that Weider paid for the repair of the Mary Queen of the World Cathedral, while Royal, an honorary pallbearer, noted that he urged Weider to donate his collection of Napoleonic artifacts to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Royal shared Weider’s interest in Napoleon).

Rabbi Alan Bright of Shaare Zedek Congregation described Weider as “one of those rare individuals who succeed in creating an aura about them that sets them apart. Ben’s life was full, and his years crowded with achievements that touched all kinds of people.”

During the 50-minute service, Weider was also described as a great Quebecer and Canadian, a private man who loved big band swing music and who was greatly anticipating last Thursday’s opening of a permanent gallery at the museum showcasing his collection.

Outside the Paperman & Sons funeral home during the service, soldiers from the Royal 22nd Regiment and the 62nd Artillery Regiment stood in an honour guard, because Weider had served as an honorary colonel of the field artillery regiment and been associated with the 22nd regiment, popularly known as the Van Doos.

Among those also attending the service were McGill law professor William Tetley, a former Quebec cabinet minister; St. Jean Baptiste Society president Jean Dorion; former Montreal chief of police Jacques Duchesneau; Liberal MNA Christine St-Pierre, and D’Arcy McGee MNA Lawrence Bergman.

Conservative shuls move to secede from USCJ

TORONTO — A number of Conservative congregations in Toronto and Montreal have recently voted or plan to vote to leave the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ), the movement’s umbrella body, over issues such as egalitarianism and gay clergy.
Rabbi Steven Saltzman, spiritual leader of Adath Israel Congregation, said last week that his shul’s board of directors has voted “overwhelmingly to leave USCJ, effective immediately, because they feel it has not met even the bare minimum needs of our community here.”
Ideologically, he said, “we find the chasm between Conservative Judaism in the United States and Conservative Judaism here to be growing larger and wider.”

Canadians, he said, are much more traditional than communities across the border, and the egalitarian movement in the United States includes women being part of the services, the ordination of gay and lesbian rabbis, and patrilineal descent. “Frankly, [USCJ] no longer represents what and who we are.”

He said Adath Israel’s youth group will not be affected because only a handful of its members participate in international activities. “Kids participate actively, and our Hebrew school is treated as a functioning youth group.”

At Beth Tikvah Congregation, the shul’s board of governors sent a report to members that said it’s recommending that the shul’s membership in USCJ be ended by June 30, the end of its membership term.

“The board is of the opinion that the USCJ has no longer any relevance to our members… is philosophically different from the way in which we practice Conservative Judaism and does not provide value to our congregation,” the report states.

In the USCJ’s attempt to be all-inclusive, the report said, “it has made more traditional synagogues such as Beth Tikvah feel marginalized. We have been dissatisfied with its unwillingness to recognize the differences between Canadian and U.S. Jewry, its lack of responsiveness to our needs and its bureaucracy and centralized governance. Its leaders have quite simply not listened to our concerns and while much is made of a new deal, it provides little change from the status quo.”

Efforts to reach shul president Jeffrey Jackson were unsuccessful, but in Beth Tikvah’s March bulletin, he said the shul pays the USCJ $41,000 in membership dues, but the shul’s board has been “concerned for several years about the value of belonging.” As well, he said, Beth Tikvah’s “more traditional observance of ‘conservative’ Judaism is in a minority compared to most of the other USCJ member congregations.”

Founded in 1913, the USCJ has about 760 affiliated synagogues in North America. It offers services in areas such as education, youth activities, leadership development, social action and public policy, and Israel affairs.

Norman Kahn, a member of Beth Tzedec Congregation’s board, said the issue of secession will be considered by the shul’s executive committee and then by its board of governors. “The issue is a serious one, and we want to ensure that we give it sufficient thought.”

Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl, spiritual leader of Beth Tzedec, Canada’s largest Conservative shul, said, however, that he is a strong advocate of remaining in the USCJ. “I believe that the Conservative movement helps us define our congregational identity and connects us to other synagogues that share the same culture. We may have differing opinions as to exact religious practices, but the Conservative community is distinct from the Reform and Orthodox movements,” he said.

“Although what we pay to the central organization far exceeds what we receive, not every relationship is simply transactional. We also have an important role to assist smaller congregations who share [common values].”

He said he is concerned that if Beth Tzedec leaves the USCJ, “we weaken the whole fabric of the Conservative movement. The Conservative movement is going through a process of regeneration. This separation would weaken that effort and our local Conservative community.”
Rabbi Howard Morrison of Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue said his shul has not yet voted on the issue, and Alex Roth, president of Beth David B’nai Israel Beth Am Synagogue, said his shul “has been in discussion with USCJ and other synagogues in the Toronto area. We will be bringing recent developments to the attention of our executive and board [this month].”
Paul Kochberg, president of the USCJ’s Canadian region, declined to comment for this article. A USCJ representative in New York could not be reached for comment before The CJN’s deadline.
In Montreal, Rabbi Alan Bright, spiritual leader of Shaare Zedek, said his congregation doesn’t see any benefit to remaining with the USCJ, “either ideologically, theologically or service-wise.”
He said the board of the 600-family synagogue has voted on the issue, but that he is not at liberty to disclose the results.

Shaare Zedek is one of four Conservative synagogues in Montreal, and Rabbi Bright said there is a similar sense of dissatisfaction among the others. “For some years, the congregations in Montreal felt that they were getting little for the annual fees they pay to USCJ, and the issue of ordaining homosexuals brought to a head this long simmering discontent.”
Even “more distressing” he said, is the push for same-sex marriage. While he has performed commitment ceremonies and brit milahs for children of same-sex parents, he is adamantly opposed to full sanctification of same-sex marriage.
With files from Janice Arnold in Montreal