It is our great pleasure to honour this year’s Kallat Torah, Ruth Warner Hyman, and H̱attan Bereisheet, Paul Rothstein, at our Simẖat Torah services and luncheon. Ruth and Paul have demonstrated outstanding dedication to our Beth Tzedec community and now join our distinguished list of honourees.
Ruth Warner Hyman—Kallat Torah
Ruth Warner Hyman, business owner, teacher and volunteer, has been an active member of Beth Tzedec for many decades. Ruth and Gurion, her husband of 61 years, opened the second branch of Hyman’s Bookstore on Eglinton Avenue. After selling the store in the 1960s, Ruth and Gurion chose to buy a home close to Beth Tzedec, and sent their three children, Shaybe, Belarie and Avi, to USDS.
In the early 1970s, Ruth decided to take on a new challenge in life and returned to university, pursuing a career as an early childhood educator. After graduation, she worked with autistic children and as a nursery school supervisor.
Ruth was active with Habonim and Pioneer Women, a Zionist women’s organization. Later in life, she accompanied her parents, Sam and Sarah Warner, to meetings of the Stashover Society, and later still she became involved with Baycrest.
At Beth Tzedec, Ruth has been very active with the Sisterhood, from organizing family Shabbat dinners to serving for many years on the Program Committee to chairing the event honouring all Sisterhood past presidents.
It is the Reuben and Helene Dennis Museum that has really provided Ruth with an outlet to combine her love for Judaica with her dedication to the shul. She has served on the Museum Committee for more than 20 years most recently as its current chair. To increase her expertise, Ruth has taken courses in museum studies and art history at the ROM, through Yeshiva University and at George Brown.
Through her work in the museum, Ruth has been very involved in purchasing beautiful Judaica for the shul, in the selection of artists to create two new Torah mantles, and in organizing the Museum’s own Antiques Road Show for the Beth Tzedec community.
Ruth’s first love remains her family. She made a home not only for her husband and children, but also for her father-in-law, Ben Zion Hyman, and later for her own father. She then welcomed new children-in-law Leslie Train, Marty Zatzman and Heidi Shuster, and is very close with her siblings, Esther Brown and Roz Savage. To this day, her grandchildren—Noah, Benzi, Faygle, Samahra, Ahron, Golda, Sariana, Hannah, Samuel and Caleb— can be found gathering for lunch on Shabbat afternoons at Bubbie Ruthie and Sabba Gurion’s home, only six houses from the shul.
Paul Rothstein—H̱attan Bereisheet
Paul Rothstein was born in London, England to a large observant family, where he attended Hendon Shul on a regular basis with his father, Isaac. His schooling included a stint at Carmel College, a private Jewish boarding school, where his sport prowess far exceeded his scholastic (both secular and religious) skills. However, the experience did leave a lasting impression on his dedication to Jewish education.
Paul came to Canada in 1957, intending to travel across North America for a year, but shortly after arriving in Toronto, he met his bride to-be, Gella Goldhar. They married in 1960 and are the proud parents of four children and their spouses: Debbie and Michael Friedman, Jackie and Robert Wilder, Michelle and Randy Rosenberg and John-David (JD) and Dionne Klein. The fruit of these unions are their nine delightful grandchildren: Emma, Zachary, Ethan, Roan, Ezra, Eli, Hannah, Sydney and Spencer.
Within a few months of being in Toronto, Paul joined the family business, Maple Leaf Plastics. He grew with the company and later became President during its final ten years. Aside from his passion for business, Paul found enjoyment in golf and tennis, and even greater fulfillment in his communal volunteer activities. With his children studying at USDS, he became involved in fundraising efforts on behalf of the school, eventually joining its Board and serving as Chairman from 1976 to 1977. A member of Beth Tzedec since marriage, Paul participated on various committees over the years and fondly remembers working as co-chair with Victor Topper on the shul’s outstanding art shows.
His love for the Synagogue and his Board participation led to Paul assuming the Presidency of Beth Tzedec Congregation from 1980 to 1982. He was a co-chair of Major Gifts for the United Jewish Appeal in 1985 to 1986, an executive member of the board of Oakdale Golf and Country Club during the 1990s and President of York Racquets from 2001 to 2003. More recently, he has served on the boards of JIAS and the Paul Penna Downtown Jewish Day School, chaired a JNF Negev dinner and co-chaired a fundraising effort on behalf of Robbins Hebrew Academy.
