by Marilyn Silverstein
NJJN Bureau Chief/PMB

May 12, 2009

On the verge of retiring after close to a half-century in the pulpit at Congregation Brothers of Israel, Rabbi Howard “Zvi” Hersch is nevertheless firmly rooted in the here and now.

“I’m not emotionally at the point where I want to do memoirs,” the 71-year-old Hersch said as he sat in his office at the synagogue in Newtown, Pa. “I’m still in today and tomorrow, not yesterday.

“There’s so much to do,” he said. “I do not anticipate a deck-chair retirement.”

It hasn’t been a deck-chair rabbinate, either. In 1961, when Hersch first walked into Brothers of Israel, then on Greenwood Avenue in Trenton, he was taking on his first full-time pulpit and the 20-family congregation was taking on its only full-time employee.

“I was the rabbi, the Torah reader. I conducted all the services and I was principal of the religious school,” he recalled. “It was a very small congregation.”

Born and raised on New York’s Lower East Side, Hersch found his way to Brothers of Israel by way of Brooklyn College and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where he earned his rabbinic degree and a master’s degree in Hebrew literature. He also holds a rabbinic degree from the Academy for Higher Jewish Learning and an honorary doctor of divinity degree from JTS.

When he arrived at Brothers of Israel, Hersch’s intention was simply to become part of the community and to do his best to serve it, he said.

“I don’t think I began with any great goals in mind, other than to be a part of the congregation and to be a teacher,” he said. “My work has been to be available — I think the idiom is ‘24/7’ — not to chase after people, but to be available to people.”

As Hersch has been there for the people of his congregation, he has also been there with Jewish-sponsored projects for the wider community. With other Jewish communal leaders, he was instrumental in harvesting federal funding for the construction of the Trent Center apartment complex on Brothers of Israel’s five-acre campus in Trenton in the mid-1960s.

The two 14-story apartment buildings offer housing to the elderly that is subsidized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Brothers of Israel continues to have representation on the board of Trent Center, which recently added a new facility, Project Freedom, offering subsidized housing for people with disabilities.

“The synagogue and I made a difference in the community with the establishment of senior housing,” Hersch said. “It was recognizing the need for urban redevelopment and for providing decent housing for senior citizens and moderate-income families — to help redevelop the city of Trenton and to provide very basic housing needs. It was motivated by our concern as part of the community.”

Hersch said he is very proud that a number of Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union found a haven at Trent Center and of his role in 1961 in convening the first Board of Rabbis of Trenton, the precursor to the current Board of Rabbis of Princeton Mercer Bucks.

“At that time, we had two Orthodox rabbis, three Conservative rabbis, and one Reform rabbi in the community,” he recalled. “What was very different then was that all the rabbis from all the denominations sat at the same table. When the JCC first opened up in Ewing Township, the Board of Rabbis worked with them to provide guidelines for kashrut and for Sabbath observance.”

‘Love for our people’

Hersch was also instrumental in founding the region’s Principals’ Council. He went on to serve for 20 years as education director of the Brothers of Israel religious school, a position his wife, Joan Hersch, has held for the past 23 years. The rabbi also served on the executive committee and the board of the former Jewish Federation of Greater Trenton, chaired the State of Israel Bonds chapter in Mercer County for many years, and helped to reorganize a Zionist Organization of America chapter in Trenton.

In addition, for close to 20 years, Hersch was Hillel counselor on the campuses of Rider College and Trenton State College — now Rider University and the College of New Jersey.

“I loved it,” he said. “It was a source of great joy. That was another part of the picture.”

This month, the 195 families of Brothers of Israel will honor Hersch for all of these accomplishments during two events. A new classroom building for the fifth, sixth, and seventh grades of the Rabbi Howard Hersch Religious School will be dedicated on Sunday, May 17, at 11 a.m. at the synagogue.

The congregation will also honor Hersch and confer upon him the title of “rabbi emeritus” during a weekend of tribute. Programs will include Shabbat services on Saturday, May 30, at 9:30 a.m., and a tribute luncheon on Sunday, May 31, at 1 p.m. at the synagogue.

As he looked back over his career as the longest-serving rabbi in the region, Hersch found it difficult to capsulize a lifetime of involvement in the congregation and the community. However, he said, those years can be summed up in one word — “people.”

“I think it’s basically the love for our people and for the synagogue as one of the main institutions of the Jewish community — a Jewish center for learning, for practicing our faith, and for becoming part of a kehilla, a sacred community,” Hersch said.

“A rabbi should be there for people,” he said. “It was being there when someone had a need or as a counselor — as someone who individuals came to and shared their nachas and their tzuris, their joys and their sorrows, and being supportive.

“The most important thing is people and trying to understand what they need and providing a Jewish context that gives value and meaning.”

For information about the tribute events, call the synagogue at 215-579-2200.

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