WINNIPEG — Rabbi Peretz Weizman has played a major role in the religious life of Winnipeg’s Jewish community for more than 50 years.

The now 86-year-old rabbi has officiated at countless bar mitzvahs, weddings, conversions, gets and funerals, as well as overseeing kashrut in the community for many years.

Ahead of his move to Toronto this fall, the community will be honouring him with a dinner on Aug. 23, which organizers hope will attract as many as 400 people. The organizers hope to raise $100,000 from the dinner to establish the Rabbi Peretz Weizman Holocaust Education Fund, to create a permanent display at the new Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada Corridor Museum as a lasting legacy and a living memorial history of the Holocaust.

He decided to move to Toronto because his wife, Reva, who is in poor health, is a resident of Baycrest. She had been a resident of the Sharon Home, the community’s north Winnipeg Jewish nursing home. Last fall, the Sharon Home board opened an expanded south Winnipeg seniors residence and closed the north Winnipeg branch. Rather than have Reva relocated to the south Winnipeg residence, her family decided to move her to Baycrest. Over the past year, Rabbi Weizman has been commuting between Winnipeg and Toronto.

Last month, Rabbi Weizman was honoured on a smaller scale by the Chavurat Tefilah Synagogue, with which he has been affiliated for the past seven years. At the May 31 event, the north Winnipeg Orthodox synagogue dedicated its annual tea to the rabbi, and the shul has ordered a new Torah mantle with his name inscribed on it.

The Holocaust has influenced Rabbi Weizman’s life significantly. Originally from Lodz, he was the youngest son in a family with close ties to the Gerer Rebbe. He recalls playing with the Gerer Rebbe’s youngest son (who later became the Gerer Rebbe himself) when both were boys.

Rabbi Weizman was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust. He experienced the hardships of life in the Lodz Ghetto and worked as a slave labourer in a factory. He often recalled those experiences in his dvar Torahs, which also included chassidic and talmudic stories and Midrash, further spiced with gematriah, jokes and anecdotes.

Rabbi Weizman came to Winnipeg in 1953. “My wife, Reva, was a cousin of Rabbi Milton Aaron, the rabbi at [Winnipeg’s] Shaarey Zedek Synagogue at the time,” Rabbi Weizman recalled. “He came to meet us in Israel and felt that I would make a good rabbi for Winnipeg.”

The new rabbi quickly immersed himself in the life of the community as a rabbi, cantor, teacher and shochet. As a shochet and rabbi in charge of kashrut supervision here, Rabbi Weizman was proud of the fact that for many years the Vaad Ha’ir of Winnipeg (now Western Kosher) had an exclusive contract to ship beef to Israel.

Rabbi Weizman’s word on kashrut was accepted without question by leading Orthodox rabbis, including Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and Rabbi Pinchas Hirschprung, in North America and Israel.

 In 1957, a new synagogue, the Bnay Abraham, which was initially Orthodox, opened, and Rabbi Weizman was invited to become its spiritual leader. That was a position he filled until the mid-1990s, when the congregation decided to hire a younger rabbi.

In 1999, however, Rabbi Weizman, who became rabbi emeritus at Bnay Abraham, found his services in demand at Toronto’s Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue as the interim rabbi, while the congregation sought a replacement for the retired Rabbi Joseph Kelman. Rabbi Weizman served at Beth Emeth for 18 months, until Rabbi Howard Morrison was hired.

Rabbi Weizman’s association with Beth Emeth actually goes back 20 years. It is the shul where he davens when he is in Toronto to visit his daughter, Tzila Schneid.

On returning to Winnipeg, he once more became the spiritual leader of the Bnay Abraham, in place of his departed successor. In 2002, his traditional congregation voted to merge with two other large Conservative congregations in north Winnipeg to form Congregation Etz Chayim. Although Rabbi Weizman once again became rabbi emeritus, some of his former Bnay Abraham congregants joined the smaller Chavurat Tefilah, and the rabbi also began attending that synagogue on a weekly basis.

“I have spent the majority of my life in Winnipeg, and I have learned a lot here,” he said. “Most importantly, I learned about the cycles of life – birth, marriage, life and death. In Europe, I mainly experienced death. I am thankful to Canada and Winnipeg.”

He is excited about the upcoming dinner in his honour. “All creation likes to be noticed and appreciated. That’s why grass and trees grow, and wildflowers come in so many colours,” he said.

In July, Rabbi Weizman will be filling in for Rabbi Morrison for the month at Beth Emeth, where he will also give lectures every Thursday morning after davening when he is in town. He will be back in Winnipeg in August for the tribute dinner. Following that, he plans to put his house up for sale and move permanently to Toronto.

For more information about the dinner honouring Rabbi Weizman, call 204-477-7460 or e-mail [email protected].