A long-term communal leader makes aliya

SUZANNE BELLING

At a farewell celebration recently held in his honour, Adler said he was more fortunate than Moshe Rabbeinu as, after 40 years with Yeshiva College and the Chevrah Kadisha, he was being given the opportunity to enter the Promised Land.

Adler had an upbringing steeped in Yiddishkeit and Zionism. “I have always been a passionate Zionist and, with my two married children and nine grandchildren living in Israel, the pull for my wife, Bev, and I was even stronger.”

Adler has been an integral part of the Glenhazel Shul community, where he knows nearly every congregant by name and circulates throughout the shul, telling jokes or entering into a discussion.

He said he was drawn to community work from his early days, because the ethos of Bnei Akiva was about helping people. “We worked to assist other people in times of need and looked after families who had suffered bereavements. This continued when I moved to Glenhazel as a young married man. Rabbi Avraham Tanzer has always been my inspiration.”

Adler believes in this principle in Pirkei Avot: “Provide yourself with a rabbi and a friend.”

Adler is known for his sense of humour. In the constant presence of death, he lightens things up a little – not at funerals and unveilings, but in the day-to-day activities of the Chev. He has said that the Chev signs letters “Yours Eventually”.

One day in the offices of the Chevrah, he announced: “We have just buried a dentist – he filled his last cavity.”

But nobody holds Adler’s black humour against him, including for the time when a cellphone rang during a funeral, and he tapped on a gravestone and said: “It’s for you.” Even the officiating rabbi couldn’t suppress his laughter.

Adler became involved in the Chevrah after he and his chaverim in Bnei Akiva took on the role of comforting bereaved families. He joined as a gabbai, conducting the official side of funerals. He went on to head up tahara teams, who perform the ritual purification of bodies.

Adler is the one often chosen to break the news of someone’s passing to the family, as he is known for his sensitivity and empathy.

“Tahara is often regarded as the greatest mitzvah, as there can be no thanks from the departed,” he explains.

He’s been known to have the minimum of sleep and be in shul for early morning Shacharit. He goes to shul twice a day, every day.

Of Adler making aliya, Rabbi Avraham Tanzer said: “I don’t know what we will do without him. We will be poorer, but Israel will be richer.

“Every Friday, he parks his car in the grounds of the shul – in case someone falls ill on Shabbos and he can drive them to the hospital.”

Adler has been known to do this and remain at the hospital “for as long as the family needs me”.

All his communal activities are voluntary. It is surprising to find he actually has a job as a director of an insurance brokerage. One wonders how he can fit this and his communal activities into a day, especially since he wakes up before 05:00 every morning.

Adler has raised funds for Yeshiva College Campus and also for the Chev, and few can refuse his fund-raising requests. He has been a member of the Union of Orthodox Synagogues executive, as well as a member of the kashrut committee.

“Whatever the community and the Jewish organisations have received from me in kind, I have got back double from them. My motive is a desire to help and see the Jewish organisations survive and thrive.”

Adler was also on the SA Jewish Board of Deputies and alternated the chairmanship of Yeshiva College and Glenhazel Shul with the late Gerald Leissner, before his appointment as honorary life president.

Adler’s deep love of Torah was nurtured from childhood in the Adath Yeshurun congregation in Yeoville, where he grew up. His parents were Holocaust survivors and his mother, Ilse, jointly chaired the Hospital Kosher Kitchen.

“We didn’t just go to cheder to learn to daven. We were taught how to make fringes on talleisim and other aspects of Jewish custom and ritual.”

Paying tribute to Adler at his farewell, Chief Rabbi Dr Warren Goldstein said: “Steven has led with dedication and menschlichkeit.”