Shmuel Zilberfarb

Shmuel Zilberfarb was born in 1955 and grew up right next to the synagogue — in the Machane Yehuda neighborhood, which old-timers called "the German quarter". His parents, Holocaust survivors who reached Israel after the war, were married here — like most of the first congregants: families who had lost one world and were building another.

The synagogue of his childhood was a wooden tzrif behind Somekh’s print shop; he was eight or nine when the barrack went up in flames before his eyes — and then, still a boy, he watched the community start over: a classroom in the old Netzach school, the plot of the old kindergarten, the building work.

His mother, Batya Zilberfarb, was one of the shul’s quiet pillars: for long years she opened and locked it, kept its funds, collected donations — and served among the gabbaim. When the Shabbat-morning minyan was one man short, she would go call Shayke Avidan, who lived nearby — and he would get up and come. And on the holidays, when many more women came to pray, she gave up her front-row seat in the ezrat nashim: "Let those who come only on the holidays hear the prayer well."

Shmuel celebrated his bar mitzvah in the present building, before the great renovation. When he grew up he took his own part: recruiting donors and helping build the events hall behind the shul, named in memory of his mother Batya z"l — "whatever was asked for the shul, I gladly joined in to help." Even after moving to Kfar Ganim he kept coming to pray on Shabbat.

Asked what makes this synagogue special, he returns to one point: no one was ever turned away here, and there were no quarrels — everyone was received with love and respect. "Everyone lived in brotherhood and unity."

Based on an interview with Shmuel and on his written notes, August 2026.