Byline: Avi Kumar

A religious pilgrimage

Bohras in prayer at the marble open-air mosque located on the grounds of Barzilai Medical Centre. (photo from Ron Lobel)

The Barzilai Medical Centre in Ashkelon, Israel, is known for treating victims of border skirmishes with Gaza. It is also the former home of a tomb where a Shi’a Muslim sect known as Dawoodi Bohras (or Bohras) still make pilgrimages. Bohras believe that the head of Husayn ibn Ali, a grandson of the founder of Islam, Prophet Mohammed, was buried here in 680 AD, following his death in battle.

While many Shi’as believe that Husayn’s complete body was buried at Karbala, Iraq, others, like the Bohras, claim that his head was hidden in Ashkelon and then taken away centuries later to Egypt to prevent desecration by European Crusaders. Despite that its final resting place might be in Egypt, the location in Ashkelon continues to attract pilgrims.

Dawoodi Bohras number around one million adherents worldwide – though some estimates are as high as five million – and trace their ancestry to Egypt during the Fatimid Caliphate. They eventually migrated to India via Yemen after the Caliphate ended in 1171 AD. Today, Bohras live mostly in Western India, with smaller communities in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Kenya and elsewhere.

Dr. Ron Lobel, former deputy director of the medical centre, has met with various pilgrims and described them as “very decent people who visit quietly and respectfully.” He continued, “You hardly notice when they’re here.”

Lobel said, wherever Bohras hail from, they converse in Lisan U Dawat, which is similar to Gujarati, with Arabic and Farsi influences, reflecting their Middle Eastern roots. Unlike the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, there is no specific time prescribed to visit Ashkelon. Therefore, pilgrims visit whenever they are able to do so.

Bohras are of the Ismaili Shi’a subdivision and have a centralized leadership, currently headed by the 53rd da’i al-mutlaq: Mufaddal Saifudeen. The Bohras’ leadership lineage can be traced directly to Prophet Mohammed. The Druze, who today live in Israel and the Levant, split off from Ismaili Shi’as in 1017 AD and now identify as a different religion altogether.

The pilgrimage site in Israel has had structures atop that were constantly demolished and rebuilt throughout history. The last standing one was a mosque named Mashhad al-Husayn, which was razed in 1950 by Moshe Dayan despite protests by Shmuel Yeivin, then director of the Department of Antiquities. The Barzilai Medical Centre was opened in 1961, and they contend that they “had no clue that the hill within the premises was a sacred site.”

Although pilgrims had visited prior to 1948, the first known group to visit after Israeli independence came in 1980, shortly after relations between Israel and Egypt were normalized. According to Aliasgher Zakir from Kenya, these pilgrims were Indian and Kenyan Bohras who had recently moved to Egypt for business purposes. Most pilgrims also visit Jerusalem, for its religious and historical significance.

In 2000, the 52nd dai, Mohammed Burhanuddin (the father of Da’i Al-mutlaq Mufaddal Saifudeen), visited during an excavation that uncovered remnants of historic structures barely a metre below the ground. Subsequently, a marble platform was installed, which now serves as an open-air mosque for pilgrims.

“Just like us Jews, they are very stubborn about keeping their old traditions, language and customs alive,” Lobel said with a chuckle. He added that, while Muslims from other sects have also visited, only Dawoodi Bohras show consistency in making pilgrimage as an organized community.

Avi Kumar is an historian and freelance writer. He has lived in six countries and speaks 10 languages. His work has been published in many countries, from his native Sri Lanka to Israel and Ireland, and he has written on a variety of topics, including history, wildlife and linguistics.

Synagogue’s milestone

Montreal’s Congregation Shaar Hashomayim has been at its Kensington Avenue home for 100 years. (photo by Lainie Berger / unsplash.com)

Montreal’s Congregation Shaar Hashomayim is 176 years old – and it has been in its current building for 100 years now. Among those who have attended the shul over its long history are Rav Abraham Isaac Kook (who was chief rabbi of British Mandate Palestine), former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau and current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, legendary musician Leonard Cohen and various members of the Bronfman family. Recently, the historic congregation made history, when it hired Rabba Rachel Kohl Finegold, the first Orthodox woman in Canada to become ordained.

“It remains a traditional synagogue that follows traditional Jewish law,” Finegold told the Independent. “Me being the first female member of the clergy may have been significant, but it only did so in complete consistency with halachah (Jewish law).”

Finegold was among the first group of female students to graduate from Yeshivat Maharat, which is located in the Bronx, N.Y., in 2013. She has chosen as her title the term rabba, although female rabbis exist in other streams of Judaism.

“I walk up to the bimah [pulpit] like my male colleagues, but I go back and sit in the female section, because our building is 100 years old and the bimah resides in the central/men’s part of the sanctuary,” she said. “That is just what the architecture allows.”

Shaar Hashomayim split off from Congregation Shearith Israel (also known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of Montreal) in 1846. Ashkenazi members – English, German and Polish Jews – wanted to practise rituals and observances more akin to what they were familiar with, rather than what was traditional for the Sephardim. In September 1922, Congregation Shaar Hashomayim moved to 450 Kensington Ave. in Westmount, where it resides to this day. After the Second World War, a school was added to accommodate the new families who had joined the congregation. Further expansion happened in 1967.

“This is among the most grand of Montreal’s synagogues. Their choir is simply like no other and the sound permeates the walls throughout during services,” said Lucy Verebes Shapiro, who, while not a member of Shaar Hashomayim, has visited the shul many times. “There is a notion of great importance about all that transpires within,” she said.

The synagogue cemetery also gets visitors, Jewish and non-Jewish, who are attracted by its denizens.

“I’m a Leonard Cohen fan and visit the cemetery every year on the anniversary of his death,” said Marta Etynkowski. “I’ve never met him, but his poetry and music have helped me through many deep, private, emotional moments throughout my life and it’s one of my biggest regrets that I never saw him while alive. It has become a bit of an annual tradition for many of his fans to pay their respects – some people leave mementos, some play his music there, others just have a private moment in front of his grave. It’s quite beautiful.”

Shaar Hashomayim has a long and rich music tradition. The services are centred around a cantor, who is accompanied by an all-male choir, the origin of which dates back to 1887.

Its museum – the Edward Bronfman Museum – holds much Judaica, including a shofar from Yemen and a few books that are centuries old. It features rotating exhibits and is open to the public.

“In the wake of the COVID pandemic, people often ask, are synagogues still relevant? I think that is because there is a misconception that synagogues are just a place of prayer alone,” said Finegold. “However, many synagogues, and ours in particular, offer a connection to community – that’s something people want. After being isolated and at home for so long, to know that there is a place that has so many doorways to access, is something that will keep the relevance and people coming in for years to come.”

Avi Kumar is an historian and freelance writer. He has lived in six countries and speaks 10 languages. His work has been published in many countries, from his native Sri Lanka to Israel and Ireland, and he has written on a variety of topics, including history, wildlife and linguistics.