“As parents we learn that we shouldn’t have a favorite child. As an educator and a congregational employee the same should hold true that I not have a favorite congregant. But I must confess, I did and it was Barbara. Barbara has always been one of my favorite people, and I know many of you feel the same way I do.
Barbara and I had many shared interests. The one that brought us together was our love for Jewish education. Barbara was the first religious school principal of Etz Chaim over fifty years ago.
When I started working here 21 years ago Barbara befriended me and offered to help me in any way she could. Over the years her interest in the school never waned. She has been my biggest supporter since the beginning. About ten years ago she thought we should have some of our students create a living history of the synagogue – so this became a project of our ninth and tenth graders. She thought it was important for future generations to know about the history of the synagogue from its humble beginnings. She worked with the kids and helped them do interviews. This documentary is still on the Etz Chaim website for people to see and learn about our congregation. I watched it again this week-end with a heavy heart.
Every time Barbara came into the building, she always came down to my office to say hi, asked about Harvey and my grandkids and asked how things were going with the school. She always read my bulletin articles and often would call to tell me how much she enjoyed a particular story or a particular project. She loved our recent project of connecting our fifth graders with students in Ranana, Israel. As we sat together last week at the senior program watching Greg Chejfec’s documentary she told me we should see if Greg would edit it down so we could use it for our upper school students. Barbara was always looking out for ways to enhance our school program.”
May Barbara’s name be for a blessing to us all.