Rabbi Philip Bregman, rabbi emeritus of Temple Sholom, has spent 45 of his 50 years since ordination in Vancouver, having joined the Reform congregation in 1980. (photo from Philip Bregman)
Temple Sholom and the larger Jewish community came together on erev Shabbat, March 28, to celebrate Rabbi Philip Bregman and his wife Cathy, marking 50 years since his ordination. The dinner and Friday night services were emotional but included a great deal of laughter.
Bregman, now rabbi emeritus of the Reform synagogue, has spent 45 of his 50 years since ordination in Vancouver. Early in his career, after also receiving a master’s degree in social work, he served in New Rochelle, NY, and in Toronto, before coming to Temple Sholom in 1980.
Since retiring from the pulpit in 2013, Bregman has served as Hillel BC’s executive director and as the Jewish chaplain at the University of British Columbia. Under the auspices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver, he helped found the Other People, an interfaith and multicultural group that talks about diversity to high school students, among other strategies.
Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, who is now Temple Sholom’s senior rabbi, spoke of what Bregman has contributed to the community.
“All of the things that we appreciate and love about being Jewish in Vancouver, Rabbi Bregman has had a hand in,” said Moskovitz, who came to Temple Sholom 13 years ago. Motioning his arms to the packed sanctuary, he said: “Rabbi, you have planted the seeds and this is the fruit.”
Moskovitz said he has been guided in his own rabbinate by a rule of thumb: “WWBD – What would Bregman do? And I just did that. I might have done it my own way, but I just did what Philip would do, what Rabbi Bregman would do, and that has served us all so well.”
Moskovitz shared a story about the weekend of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, in 2018.
“I was crushed and devastated,” said Moskovitz. “After the service, I went into my office, which was his office, and I cried. Rabbi Bregman came in and he held me, and I cried on his shoulder. It wasn’t the first time. It wasn’t the last time I cried on your shoulder. Thank you for being this rabbi’s rabbi. Thank you for letting us cry on your shoulder, and for those shoulders holding us up.”
Rabbi Carey Brown, who came from the United States to become the shul’s associate rabbi, credited Bregman for helping her become, first, “a rabbi to Canadians” and, in time, “a Canadian rabbi myself.”
She said Bregman told her when she arrived: “The thing to know about Canadian Jews is Israel. Canadian Jews are very connected, strongly, to Israel.
“It’s really through your love of Israel that I have seen that so, so deeply,” she said.
Speaking on behalf of the family, Shai Bregman, the rabbi’s son and eldest offspring, joked, “I was saving all this material for the eulogy.”
“Who he is as a rabbi and who he is as a person can’t be separated,”
Shai Bregman said. “His passion for Judaism, his unapologetic Zionism, his determination to teach his grandchildren every swear word, are all what makes him who he is.”
The rabbi, said his son, is “one of the most vicious fundraisers you could ever imagine.”
“I’ve seen him raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in between baseball innings, both for the shul and for individuals in need.”
Speaking to the assembled crowd, Bregman donned a Toronto Blue Jays tallit that the congregation gave him upon his retirement 13 years ago, and reflected on the highs and lows.
On Jan. 25, 1985, at 1:30 a.m., Bregman received a call from Vancouver’s fire chief.
“Rabbi, your synagogue is entirely engulfed,” the head firefighter told him. “We believe it was a Molotov cocktail.”
There had been a previous incident and the congregation was in the process of erecting grates on the windows. Only two windows remained unprotected and one of those was where the firebomb entered. The crime remains unsolved.
For two and a half years, the congregation held its services at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver and its religious school at Vancouver Talmud Torah. Bregman recalled being contacted by the late Rabbi Mordechai Feuerstein of the Orthodox Congregation Schara Tzedeck, offering Bregman and his staff office space for the duration.
“You’re going to catch hell,” Bregman told him. But Feuerstein insisted.
“And we paid this much rent,” Bregman said, forming a zero with his thumb and forefinger. “I will always be indebted to my beloved colleague. We had one major, major disagreement. It was not halachic. He unfortunately was a Boston Red Sox fan.”
That cross-denominational cooperation may have been a product of a uniquely Vancouver phenomenon. The Rabbinical Association of Vancouver, which encompasses congregational rabbis across the denominational spectrum, emerged from the first phone call Bregman received from outside the Temple Sholom community upon his arrival in the city. It was Rabbi Wilfred (Zev) Solomon of the Conservative synagogue Beth Israel.
“And that started the most incredible, loving, collegial friendship,” Bregman said. “Zev and I started the RAV, the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver, the collaboration that, among many things, I am most proud.”
Bregman credited the Temple Sholom community with providing a second home to his three children, who had the good fortune of remaining in one place for their entire childhoods, something that is rare for “RKs” – “rabbi’s kids,” as Bregman calls them.
The “kids’ (now adults) are daughters Shira and Jordana, and son Shai. Jordana and her husband, Itamar, are parents of Raf and Yoni. Shai and his wife, Michelle, have three children, Maya, Olivia and Talya.
Among other highlights, Bregman recalled mentoring seven individuals who went into the rabbinate and, with wife Cathy, taking “Israel virgins,” totaling about 1,000 people, to the Holy Land over the years.
Bregman credited his wife for the name of the group, the Other People, and said there was a challenge operating under the auspices of both the Jewish Federation and the RAV.
“The question was,” deadpanned Bregman, “who was going to manage him?”
The rabbi and his son, as well as other speakers, singled out Cathy Bregman as an irreplaceable force in the success of Bregman’s rabbinate and the achievements of the congregation, citing her concern for, engagement with and intuitive understanding of individual congregants.
At the dinner before Friday services, Ellen Gordon led a trivia game about events in 1975.
Anne Andrew spoke about arriving in Vancouver in 1980 and going “shul shopping.” She and her then-fiancé Eric attended the High Holiday services that year – “In those days, Rabbi Bregman was a bimah-thumper of note,” she said – and have been Temple Sholom members ever since, she serving as religious school principal when Bregman was rabbi, and Eric serving on the board, including as treasurer.
Jerry Growe, a past president of the synagogue, gave a drash on the week’s Torah portion, drawing parallels between the Book of Exodus and Bregman’s career, which included leading the congregation from the burned-out synagogue to the present structure, in 1988.
MLA Terry Yung, BC minister of state for community safety and integrated services, brought greetings from the province of British Columbia.
Taleeb Noormohamed, member of Parliament for Vancouver Granville, presented Bregman with a parliamentary recognition and discussed participating with the rabbi in interfaith work.
Former MLA Michael Lee and other members of the Other People paid tribute to the rabbi.