{"id":48640,"date":"2026-03-27T01:50:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T08:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=48640"},"modified":"2026-03-26T17:05:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T00:05:42","slug":"beth-tikvah-celebrates-50th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2026\/03\/27\/beth-tikvah-celebrates-50th\/","title":{"rendered":"Beth Tikvah celebrates 50th"},"content":{"rendered":"

The delayed celebration of Beth Tikvah\u2019s 50th anniversary takes place April 19, with a night of comedy headlined by Juno Award-winning comedian Jacob Samuel. <\/i>(photo from byjacobsamuel.com<\/a>)<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/i>Beth Tikvah, the Conservative synagogue in Richmond, was founded in 1973. That placed the 50th anniversary in 2023, and a celebration was planned for October. Then the catastrophe of 10\/7 occurred, and the event was indefinitely postponed.<\/p>\n

Now that all the hostages are home and the war that began that day has ended (though a different one continues), the congregation thought it was not just appropriate to come together to celebrate the milestone of their community, but necessary.<\/p>\n

A communal celebration \u2013 with laughter \u2013 is something the community needs, Rabbi Susan Tendler told the Independent<\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople just really need to laugh,\u201d she said, and to find strength in community.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tendler herself arrived as Beth Tikvah\u2019s spiritual leader at the height of another collective crisis \u2013 the COVID pandemic. Her family was greeted warmly, but from a distance, as intense social isolation rules were still in place.<\/p>\n

Six years later, she is effusive in her love for her role and her adopted community. Beyond the immediate Beth Tikvah and Richmond communities, she said, the relationship among Metro Vancouver\u2019s rabbis is extremely unusual, with deep ties across denominations. Tendler is currently chair of the Rabbinical Association of Vancouver, the main conduit for that tight union.<\/p>\n

Jews at Beth Tikvah, in British Columbia and worldwide are resilient but tired, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are fierce and we are resilient, and we are strong and we are agile and we are constant,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we all can feel the weariness from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coming together to celebrate is necessary, she said, noting that Purim this year seemed to unleash a collective wellspring of joy.<\/p>\n

The delayed celebration of Beth Tikvah\u2019s 50th anniversary takes place April 19, with a night of comedy featuring Juno Award-winning comedian Jacob Samuel and emcee Kyle Berger, himself a funnyman of some repute.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Berger\u2019s brother, Tadd Berger, is the synagogue\u2019s president, as was older brother Ryan and mother Marilyn before him.<\/p>\n

The Bergers were not founding members of the congregation, said Tadd Berger, but they showed up more than four decades ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeth Tikvah is a special place,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s always been a special place for me. I was bar mitzvahed at Beth Tikvah, I was married at Beth Tikvah. It has always been a centrepoint of my person, of my growth, of my community. A lot of who I am today is a result of opportunities and programs and events and things that I had at Beth Tikvah.\u201d<\/p>\n

He called his leadership role at this moment in the history of the shul and the community a responsibility, an honour and a privilege.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While the celebration next month caps a half-century of growth, Berger is looking to the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur membership has been growing the last several years,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that we will continue to grow. We\u2019ll continue to find more ways to connect with and service and support the larger Jewish community, especially the Richmond Jewish community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beth Tikvah is the only Conservative synagogue south of Fraser River, Berger noted, so he views the shul as serving a larger geographic region, stretching southward.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He is also proud of the range of programs the community delivers, including food security programs and services for youth and seniors, which are open to members and non-members.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe see ourselves as Richmond\u2019s synagogue and here to support the whole community,\u201d said Berger. \u201cThat\u2019s how we want to continue and, [in] the coming 50 years, I hope that that gets us embraced more and more by the community. \u201c<\/p>\n

The solemnity of the period since Oct. 7, which occurred just as the world was emerging from the COVID pandemic, means it has been a long time since a festivity of this type has occurred, according to one of the organizers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe event is the first big fundraiser we\u2019ve had in a long time,\u201d said Alisa Magnan, who is co-chairing the celebration with Mindy Zimmering. \u201cWe\u2019re raising badly needed funds for programs and it\u2019s a great chance to support the community and get together and have some fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Magnan echoes the rabbi in noting that it is time for the community to kick back and have a good time amid the many challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to be able to get together and celebrate our community and find some joy after such difficult times,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In addition to the anticipated guffaws (induced, the PR promises, by \u201csmart, clean humour\u201d), the event will include a 50\/50 draw in addition to food stations featuring pasta, barbecue, salads, Mexican cuisine and cr\u00eapes for dessert. Tickets and more information for April 19\u2019s \u00a0Eat, Laugh, Schmooze: A Night of Comedy & Connection are at btikvah.ca<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The delayed celebration of Beth Tikvah\u2019s 50th anniversary takes place April 19, with a night of comedy headlined by Juno Award-winning comedian Jacob Samuel. (photo from byjacobsamuel.com) Beth Tikvah, the Conservative synagogue in Richmond, was founded in 1973. That placed the 50th anniversary in 2023, and a celebration was planned for October. Then the catastrophe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48641,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[21899,22332,1976,5278,4333,7670,8664,19750,24742],"class_list":["post-48640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-alisa-magnan","tag-anniversaries","tag-beth-tikvah","tag-comedy","tag-jacob-samuel","tag-kyle-berger","tag-milestones","tag-susan-tendler","tag-tadd-berger"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}