Rabbi Sydney Shoham is the founder of Montreal’s Beth Zion Synagogue. He retired after Yom Kippur after 50 years of service to the community, but still plans to play an active role in and around the city, as well as at Hillel events on both Concordia’s and McGill’s campuses.
What originally drove you to become a rabbi?
My father was a rabbi, both my grandfathers were…it was in the family. Actually, my real desire was medicine. When I went to yeshiva, I enjoyed the studies very much. I [also] enjoyed the scientific studies very much that I was taking in Brooklyn College, and I was swaying between the two. What really swayed me was the enjoyment of learning, studying, and coming home and discussing within a rabbinic environment what I was studying in yeshiva.
Why did you decide to retire at this time?
Well, I’ve been [at Beth Zion] 50 years…it’s called Yovel, Jubilee…so it’s a sense of reaching a point that I really wanted to do something else. It’s not just retiring and stopping from what I’ve been doing, I just want to do it in a different direction.
Looking back at your career, what was your proudest moment?
I don’t think it was one proud moment, I think there were many proud moments. Seeing a shul starting from a little house, and davening in the basement of the house, and then putting up an auditorium, and then seeing that wasn’t enough, so we had to put up the main synagogue, and seeing a continuous progression so that almost every stage of a new progression becomes a new stage in life, which is the greatest moment…
It was a result of trying to create a type of community that was a friendly community - one that was working with the youth, with the elderly, the middle aged couples. We had programs that we started from the very beginning to the very end of life.
What aspect of your job will you miss the most?
The basic inter-relationship with the people. Dealing with their sorrows, their joys, their problems. Also, seeing how so many individuals who grew up and developed in Beth Zion became leaders in Montreal or in whatever communities they’ve moved into. So many of them are presidents of shuls in the communities where they moved.
Do you still plan on being active in the community?
As long as the community will ask of me to help…I will give every effort to help them. In terms of being active, I am serving on the ethics committee of the Jewish General Hospital, and Maimonides and Eldercare. I think I certainly have a lot to offer in terms of lecturing…which was one of my most important areas of satisfaction, giving lectures on Judaism.