French rabbi implements his unique brand of community work to help revitalize Tel Aviv synagogue.
By AIMEE NEISTATGaddy Zerbib 88 248(photo credit: Marc Amouyal)
In February 2002, the president of Habayim Yesharesh-Wiener Minyan synagogue in Tel Aviv, Dr. Willy Goldberg, arrived at the synagogue to discover it had been gutted of all its furniture and its Torah scroll. He soon discovered that the treasurer had decided to shut it down as a result of its dwindling congregation. After two years of legal proceedings and a year of renovations, the synagogue was reopened. In the last two years the synagogue has become a cornerstone for a community of French Jews who recently immigrated to Israel.
Habayim Yesharesh was established in the 1950s by Ashkenazi Jews of Austrian origin. According to the synagogue vice-president Amnon Goldberg, it thrived until the 1970s, when many of the children of its Orthodox founders abandoned religion and became secular. The synagogue's congregation declined until, in the 1990s, it was barely able to form a minyan, even on Shabbat.
In 2002, some remaining members attempted to shut it down without consulting the rest of the leadership board. They intended to convert the synagogue into an apartment, rent it out and transfer the synagogue's name, furniture and Torah scroll to a new synagogue of the same name, which they wanted to found in Bnei Brak. The rental income was to be used to fund the new synagogue.
But Goldberg saw the importance of maintaining synagogues in Tel Aviv and called upon the services of Eliyahu Benacom, co-founder of the Association for the Restoration of Synagogues in Tel Aviv.
Benacom, a real estate agent by trade, founded the nonprofit association eight years ago with his brother. After making aliya from France they were heartbroken to see that "here in Israel, our roots were being cut off," he told Metro. "It wasn't understandable to us as traditional people who arrived from overseas to see that synagogues [in Israel] were being closed down."
The association had already renovated two synagogues by the time Goldberg approached Benacom, making Habayim Yesharesh their third project. They renovated the property, laid wooden floors and brought in new furniture, lamps and tables. The changes were aimed at converting the old synagogue into one that was "comfortable for the public," said Benacom.
The final touch was Benacom's invitation to Rabbi Gaddy Zerbib to move his family from France to Tel Aviv in order to serve as the synagogue's rabbi. "I'll give the walls, you give the life," he said to Zerbib, to which Zerbib replied, "Yalla - let's do it."
On Zerbib's first Shabbat as rabbi, he and Benacom stood on the street, sweating in the sun, inviting passersby to come in and form a minyan. "Some people looked at me like, 'Where do you come from? Are you nuts?' Some people looked at me with half a smile and some people said, 'You know what? I'm coming in,'" Zerbib recalled. When Zerbib was invited to come to Israel, he was the rabbi of a large congregation near Lyons, France. He was also working as a lecturer and had been involved in outreach for six years. "I had had enough in France. I was looking forward to coming back to Israel. This was the opportunity to come back to Tel Aviv," he said.
"I have this feeling that Tel Aviv is the kind of Los Angeles of the '70s. Everybody's looking for spirituality here," said Zerbib. "They say as a joke that Tel Aviv is the most religious town in Israel because [most of the people there] are searching, which is true actually. In Jerusalem people are closed in their books. [They categorize] 'You are like this, you are like that. That's it,'" said Zerbib.
There are a number of reasons Zerbib was hand-picked to revive the Tel Aviv synagogue. Since he is not only a rabbi but also an educator and a musician, he had the potential to connect and communicate with the Tel Aviv crowd. Benacom described Zerbib as patient, open to the public and charming. All of these characteristics, he said, make Zerbib special and "appropriate" for his role as a Tel Aviv rabbi. Benacom added that not many rabbis would be willing to move to Tel Aviv and build a community there.
Zerbib works for the synagogue on an entirely voluntary basis. For a living, he works as a scriptwriting teacher and script doctor at a film school near Gedera. He intends to open a film school in Tel Aviv with some talented friends who are also teachers, where students will study Torah as well as the tools of filmmaking. Torah study, he explains, serves two key purposes. The first is to facilitate filmmakers' abilities to produce Jewish stories. The second is to show how the Torah teaches that the core and essence of a story is transformation.
The rabbi is also a keen musician. He sings and plays the drums and keyboard. Some of his songs were played on Israeli radio about 10 years ago, and he has recently been working with his band, Salanters, on a project that's due to be released soon. His music is predominantly reggae and funk and his lyrics cover a mixture of biblical themes and Zerbib's "own stuff."
The band is named after Rabbi Yisroel Salanter, head of the Mussar movement. Mussar, as described by Zerbib, helps people who study Torah find a balance between their intellect and emotion. "There's a particular technology for how to do it," said Zerbib, who often used Mussar in his outreach work and has recently begun teaching Mussar coaching methods at Habayim Yesharesh.
Zerbib draws on his skills as a musician, teacher and Mussar coach to serve his new synagogue's culturally diverse congregation, which has been transformed from a wholly Ashkenazi one into one that is predominantly Sephardi.
When members of the congregation disagree over the melody for various prayers and songs, Zerbib uses his musical talent to suit the service to the congregation present at any given time. "We create this melting pot of happiness, of Jewish people being all together," said Zerbib.
Though all the prayers are in Hebrew, Zerbib makes his speeches and gives lessons in either Hebrew, French or English - or even a combination of languages - depending on who is in attendance that day. "I make sure that everybody gets what they can. I want to make sure everybody's happy," said Zerbib.
"I tend to be a reference for the French people in Tel Aviv because I am the only French-speaking rabbi living in Tel Aviv," asserted Zerbib. He added that other French-speaking rabbis come to Tel Aviv during the week, but live elsewhere.
"I believe I have to live in a certain place... to really be part of the neighborhood. Not just come, be imported from another place, do [my] work and [go back home]. I don't believe in that. I believe that if I am part of it, I am part of it completely," he said.
"Tel Aviv is like the bastion of hard-core Israeli society," said Zerbib. "I actually feel I am part of it on the one [hand]. On the other hand I have much to share with [its residents]," he said.
Zerbib was born in Bordeaux, France in 1964. His father - a chief rabbi in Tours - received the most prestigious decoration in France, the Legion of Honor, at the degree of Chevalier (Knight), for his services in fighting the Nazis. Zerbib was brought up in an atmosphere that placed strong emphasis on taking care of human beings and supporting "Israel, Israel, always Israel - our country, our home," he said.
Zerbib studied at an Israeli high-school yeshiva and later at the Diaspora Yeshiva in Jerusalem. There he met his wife, Rachel, who is the daughter of Diaspora Yeshiva head Rabbi Mordechai Goldstein.
After many years of yeshiva studies Zerbib did two years of outreach work in Gibraltar in southern Spain. After that, he worked for four years as a teacher and rabbi in London, where he also performed in a band comprised of both Jewish and non-Jewish musicians.
He came back to Israel to study at the Chief Rabbinate for four years and then left again for a six-year outreach project in France. During a difficult time, when France faced considerable anti-Semitism, Zerbib managed to open up three batei midrashot [seminaries] and to continue outreach via what he described as "non-conventional activities" and the use of his musical talents.
In 2006, Zerbib moved to live in Tel Aviv with Rachel and their five children.
"As a result, this synagogue that was on the verge of closing and was predominantly Ashkenazi is now thriving and has a [high proportion of its] membership of French Sephardi, young, new olim, who have come over here in the last two or three years," said Amnon Goldberg.
For a month now, Habayim Yesharesh has provided a "full" set of weekly services, including four on Shabbat, daily Shaharit and Minha and shiurim (lessons) throughout the week.
The weekly congregation is made up of approximately 30 people and during the summer tourists join the congregation. "On Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur we don't even count anymore. The synagogue is packed. We don't have space," prided Zerbib.
Zerbib also prides his synagogue on its ability to have a minyan every day at Shaharit. "We are reviving a dead synagogue. Within a radius of 200 meters from us, [synagogues] that have been here for 40 to 50 years find it very hard to have a minyan every morning. To get 10 guys together in Tel Aviv is unusual. Baruch Hashem, we have a minyan every morning. It's a miracle," said Zerbib.
Habayim Yesharesh is located at 10 Nathan HaHacham St., Tel Aviv. Weekly lessons include a Monday night women's class, taught by Rachel, Wednesday night Mussar coaching seminar and a Thursday night couples' class. Rabbi Gaddy Zerbib can be contacted at 054-313-3276.
if(catID != 151){
var cont = `Take Israel home with the new Jerusalem Post Store
