10 years ago, in September 2015, the world was horrified by the image of a dead child washed up on the shores of Greece. Alan Kurdi was only three years old when he drowned, as his family tried to flee the civil war in Syria.

Many Beth Tzedec members turned to Rabbi Frydman Kohl, Rabbi Cutler and Yacov Fruchter, feeling helpless and wanting to find some way to get involved. JIAS had recently been awarded the status of a SAH (sponsorship agreement holder), and in partnership with them we established our Beth Tzedec refugee Sponsorship group led by Bari Zittell and many other wonderful volunteers. In the 10 years that followed, we sponsored one Syrian and one Eritrean family who are both thriving in Canada. With the influx of Ukrainians to Canada after the onset of the war with Russia, Beth Tzedec members formed welcome groups in support of JIAS’s work, just as we did when Israelis began arriving to Toronto after October 7th.

This of course followed the historical work of saving Syrian Jews beginning in the 1970s. Thanks to the leadership of Judy Feld Carr, the first female president of Beth Tzedec, our synagogue was instrumental in helping to heroically save 3228 members of the Jewish Syrian community through an elaborate decades-long clandestine operation.