Rabbis
Rabbi Joseph Krivy was Berlin's (Kitchener’s) first religious leader, arriving in 1908. He was born in Russia in 1874, and came to Canada in 1904 with his wife, Ida, and their daughter, Annie. Sadly, he was left a widower around 1907. He remarried and had three more children with his second wife, Paulia. The Rabbi taught lessons and led services in the absence of a synagogue. Eventually the Krivys left Berlin and moved to Toronto.
Mordeccai Highman succeeded Rabbi Krivy as shochet and educator, though he too was not an ordained rabbi. Rabbi Garfinkel led the congregation in the early 1920s, followed by Rabbi Levine, who was serving the community by the time the synagogue was built in 1925. From then on, Beth Jacob had a series of full-time rabbis who typically stayed a year or two and then moved on. Rabbi W. Mann served in the 1930s. Eve Rosen Gordon remembers Rabbi Mann as a very understanding and helpful counselor during her childhood. Other rabbis included Rabbi Bornstein, M. I. Beshkin, Julius Levine, Rabbi Berniker and Rabbi Eugene Duschinsky.
Undoubtedly, the most important rabbi in Kitchener’s history was its most longstanding one. Rabbi Philip Rosensweig came to Kitchener in 1953, soon after being ordained. Beth Jacob Congregation was his first full-time post and he remained there for 36 years, devoting his life and service to the congregation and earning their respect and attachment. Rabbi Rosensweig was inducted on 27 December 1953 at an elaborate banquet held in the shul hall with an overflow crowd of 200 people. He was also heavily involved in congregation and community activities, working as teacher and principal at the Hebrew School, giving synagogue tours and talks to local groups, serving on community committees, and establishing and overseeing the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation at the Waterloo Lutheran University (Wilfred Laurier University). The Rosensweigs were in Kitchener until the Rabbi’s untimely death in 1989.
Soon after the arrival of Rabbi Rosensweig in 1953, Mr. Meyer Kellerman joined Beth Jacob as shochet, Bal Tefillah and Torah reader. He was also a chazzan and a mohel. Mr. Kellerman stayed in Kitchener for twenty years and “served Beth Jacob with distinction,” avowed Eve Rosen Gordon. Mr. Kellerman ran the Junior Service with all the Hebrew School children on Shabbat. He was remembered fondly by Kitchener’s young adults as a dedicated Bar Mitzvah teacher.
Rabbi Rosensweig
Joel Cohen describes Rabbi Rosensweig’s remarkable character and contributions to both Kitchener and recent immigrants, on whom he had a great effect while still a young man in Toronto.
Interview with Joel Cohen, 25 September 2007, Sharon Gubbay Helfer. OJA, Oral History #336
Click here to watch the video
