Merrick, Bellmore Jewish community honors the legacy of Rabbi Charles and Betty Klein

When Rabbi Emeritus Charles A. Klein retired from the Merrick Jewish Centre in October 2021, after 43 years with the congregation, a legacy fund was created in the name of Klein and his wifwe, Betty, to honor their service to the Merrick and Bellmore Jewish community. The fund has helped the synagogue create educational avenues for MJC congregants young and old.

The synagogue welcomed Dr. Stephen Berk, an esteemed historian and scholar recognized for his expertise in modern Jewish history and the Holocaust, as a speaker for the inaugural event of the Rabbi Charles and Betty Klein Legacy Fund on June 1.

Berk, a professor at Union College in Schenectady, discussed “The Imperfect Miracle: Israel at the Crossroads,” in honor of the country’s 75th anniversary. In a thought-provoking presentation, he addressed the current challenges Israel faces, as well as its past and future.

Joanne Skop, a chair of the MJC’s Lifelong Learning Committee, helped organize the evening, along with Co-chair Steven Greenfield.

“He’s riveting,” Skop said of Berk. “There’s something in the way he speaks that just makes you want to listen to him.”

At last week’s event, Rabbi Joshua Dorsch, the congregation’s new spiritual leader, who joined the MJC last summer, said the legacy of the Kleins has meant a lot to him personally, and to the synagogue as a whole.

“I can’t think of a more fitting way to leave a legacy than to create a fund in perpetuity — an endowed fund to ensure that this community, on a regular basis, has the opportunity to be inspired with some of the best and brightest educational and cultural experiences,” Dorsch said. “I can’t think of a more fitting lecturer that Dr. Stephen Berk.”

Nearly 20 years ago, the Kleins had the opportunity to travel to Eastern Europe with Berk, and learn about the history of several countries through the eyes of an expert. Both Charles and Betty spoke highly of the experience, and said they were overwhelmingly grateful that he could be the first speaker for their fund.

Klein said that when Israel celebrated its 75th anniversary on the holiday Yom Ha’atzmaut in April, he tried to put into words what the milestone meant to him. “In a time when Israel’s imperfections are so visible, and when the society is so torn by eternal political strife, I wanted to talk about the place I love,” he said. “Like Steve (Berk), I was born in Brooklyn, but I was reborn in Israel — over and over again.

“I am thankful for what we call the imperfect miracle — our miracle, the miracle and restoration of a Jewish state,” Klein added. “Israel is, in my view, the greatest story of human rebirth in history. We love it. We do, we will — with its imperfections, with everything that we know about it, because we can love and cherish and treasure the imperfect, because we know how to do that. We do it every day in life.”

Berk detailed for the audience how Israel came to be, after Jews realized there was no longer a safe place for them to live in Europe in the late 1800s. He emphasized repeatedly that society “cannot explain the present by the present.”

Though Israel emerged as a relatively liberal, democratic country, Berk reminded the crowd that in its past, there was talk of making it a socialist, Marxist country. An issue the country now faces is balancing its secular nature against an extremely conservative Orthodox sect of Judaism, which opposes progressive thoughts, actions and policies.

Berk didn’t shy away from freighted topics such as Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians — particularly in the Gaza strip, where Israelis and Palestinians have been killed. The polarizing events have captivated audiences worldwide, and created a yawning divide.

“I told the students in my Middle Eastern history class, the Arabs have a legitimate claim to that land,” Berk said. “We would be insensitive — stupid — not to acknowledge this. From the seventh century on, the Arabs were a vast majority in that land — but we, too, have a claim to that land.”

Berk said he felt that some media reports on the conflict are biased, because no one — including the Israeli Defense Forces — wants to see innocent people die. “But look seriously at that,” he said. “Who began the shelling of Israel, the indiscriminate shelling of Israel? Islamic Jihad did.”

Ultimately, Berk said, he believes that a two-state solution is necessary to resolve the conflict, but that is something that has been tried, and has failed, in the past — and it may be hard to predict if, and when, such a resolution might succeed.

Israel’s 75th anniversary, Berk said, celebrates the resiliency of the Jewish people and the wonderful history of the country, which is modern, technologically advanced, and contributes to global markets. “The creation of the State of Israel, and the support given by the American Jewish community to the State of Israel since 1948, and before 1948, before there was an Israel,” he said, “testifies to the fact that we are not fossils — that it truly can be said of us, the Jewish people are still alive.