SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN
Staff Writer
I
n 1941, a young Monte Syme boarded a bus in
his hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba. He was
bound for rabbinical school at the Jewish
Institute of Religion in New York City.
The future rabbi of Temple Israel in Detroit was
armed with hope, enthusiasm, a great love for
Judaism, a devoted family, and not much else.
"He came from a very poor family," says his eldest
son, Rabbi Daniel Syme of Temple Beth El in
Bloomfield Township.
"My grandfather was a blacksmith. They raised
chickens in the back yard to have enough to eat. His
father sent him with only a one-way ticket."
But what he took with him proved enough for the
young Canadian.
Now, as Rabbi M. Robert Syme prepares to retire
four months shy of his 47th anniversary with Temple
Israel, he cherishes his roots, sharing them often in his
sermons — memories of his Orthodox home, his
mother's death and lessons learned from his devout
father. Tonight's Shabbat services at Temple Israel will
honor his nearly five decades of service as well as his
80th birthday.
He was born Monte Syme on July 4, 1920, to
Ghana and Matisyahu Syme, who emigrated from
Russia where their name had been
Shinelnikoff.
The youngest of five children, he
attended public schools but also
took classes at the Winnipeg
Hebrew Free School every day
through high school. Among his
classmates and friends were Monte
Halperin, who later became Monte
Hall of television's Let's Make a Deal
and Morley Margolis, who changed
his name to Morley Meredith when he became a
singer with the New York Metropolitan Opera.
Rabbi Syme was a singer, too. At age 14, he was
the cantor of the Ashkenazi Congregation in his
neighborhood. Called "the boy chazzan [cantor] of
Winnipeg," he was paid $1,000 for singing at holiday
services during the Depression, says his son Dan.
After graduation from high school, Monte Syme
attended Wesley College, part of the University of
Manitoba in Winnipeg, and earned a bachelor's
degree in general studies in 1941.
enter the rabbinate, he responded with enthusiasm.
"Yiddish was my second language," Rabbi Syme says.
"If I knew Yiddish, he would give me a scholarship."
As a rabbinical student in New York, he was care-
ful to keep only to Yiddish. Then one day, he recalls
with laughter, he was asked, "Young man, do you
speak English?"
After it was clear that he did, Rabbi Syme was
assigned to a position as assistant chaplain at Belleville
Hospital, where he received room, board and $8 a
month. This would have been sufficient had he not
been secretly married to Sonia Hendin, now his wife
of 58 years. He was paying rent for her to live in a
separate apartment.
"Rabbinical students were not supposed to be mar-
ried until after they were ordained," says son David
Syme, a concert pianist, of his parents' 1942 marriage
by an Orthodox rabbi in Winnipeg.
When Rabbi Wise discovered the Symes were mar-
ried, he told them they should be together. The mar-
riage was accepted; but his freelance singing perfor-
mances were not.
"Dad was a singer as well as a cantor and he used
to moonlight singing show tunes and Yiddish songs
in the Catskills (New York resorts)," says David. "He
was told by the head rabbi he couldn't stay in school,
as it was not fitting — not dignified."
Rabbi Syme halted the engagements, but was per-
Pittsburgh. At the same time, Rabbi Syme enrolled in
a graduate program at the University of Pittsburgh,
where he earned a master's in education.
In Butler, Dan says his father became something of
a local celebrity, "not only because he was the rabbi,
but because he was also the star pitcher on one of the
city league's softball teams. He once pitched a no-hit-
ter against the Queens [New York] baseball team."
It was on the playing field in Butler that Monte
Syme made a name change. "His mother had given
him the name Monte because she hated diminutives,"
says Dan. "He hated it."
But he loved his brother Baruch, whose English
name transferred to Robert. With no middle name,
the rabbi took the first initial of Monte, and joined it -
with the name that honored his brother. He became
Rabbi M. Robert Syme in synagogue, but on the
playing field, his uniform sported the name, "Bob."
Arriving At Temple
Rabbi Syme's friend and colleague Rabbi Freehoff was
liturgy chairman of the Reform movement's Central
Conference of American Rabbis. In 1953, he urged
Rabbi Syme to accept the assistant rabbi position
under Rabbi Leon Frain at Temple Israel in Detroit.
Rabbi Fram had founded the congregation in 1941
after 16 years as assistant rabbi at Temple Beth El
Temple Israel honors Rabbi M. Robert Syme master
storyteller, community activist, Zionist, beloved spiritual
leader
on his retirement after nearly 47 years of service.
Becoming A Rabbi
Monte Syme originally had planned to become a
lawyer like his brother Herbert, but his life's route was
altered when he heard ardent American Zionist leader
Rabbi Stephen S. Wise speak at a rally in Winnipeg.
Rabbi Wise told of the persecution of European
Jews and of the killing of rabbis in the Holocaust. The
idea that a crisis would ensue if there were no rabbis
prompted Syme to decide to enter the rabbinate at
Rabbi Wise's Jewish Institute of Religion. The New
York City school would later become part of the
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion,
the Reform movement's main teaching school.
When he learned from Rabbi Wise that young
men, especially Yiddish speakers, were needed to
mitred to continue his cantorial work. He frequently
substituted for Cantor Reuben Tucker in New York,
later discovering Reuben Tucker had become Richard
Tucker of Metropolitan Opera fame.
Road To Temple Israel
While a rabbinical student, Rabbi Syme took a posi-
tion with a small congregation in Plainfield, N.J.,
which also became his first pulpit after ordination.
From there, he became the rabbi of a merged
Orthodox/Reform congregation in Sharon, Pa., a
steel-mill town on the Ohio border, northeast of
Youngstown.
"My father said, 'We're going to have one Jewish
community,"' says Dan. "Dad always wore a
yarmulke and kept a kosher home so that everyone
would be comfortable with him as a rabbi. And he
walked to shul. Friday night, his service used the
Reform prayer book and an organ, and the sermon
was in English. And Saturday morning, there was an
Orthodox service in the sanctuary, with the sermon in
Yiddish."
In 1948, Rabbi Syme moved to the 25-family
Congregation B'nai Abraham in Butler, Pa., about 30
miles north of Pittsburgh. He wanted to be nearer to
his mentor and teacher, Rabbi Solomon B. Freehoff, a
Reform rabbi at Congregation Rodef Shalom in
under Rabbi Leo Franklin.
"I remember the first Friday night we were going
to services [at Temple Israel]," says Dan. "I was used
to a mile-long walk, but Dad said, 'We're going to
have to ride in the car,' and I said, 'On Shabbos?' He
said the temple is far away and it's more important
for people to go to services than to stay home.' I
bought that, and then he said, "By the way, 'You
don't have to wear a yarmulke anymore.'"
Dan remembers asking his father, "Where are you
taking me? Did we convert?"
In time, things changed. Rabbi Syme soon per-
suaded Rabbi Fram and the board of directors to give
congregants the option of wearing a tallit (prayer
shawl) at services. This offer was later extended to
kippot (head coverings).
Shortly after his arrival at Temple Israel, the new
assistant rabbi made several significant changes.
Grounded in his intensely Jewish upbringing, Rabbi
Syme introduced elements of traditional Judaism into
religious practice. The founding of a daily service and
the Hebrew school are among his most prized innova-
tions.
Rabbi Syme says he was disturbed that there was
no weekday service. "We had no daily minyan [prayer
quorum]," he says. "I didn't want our members to
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