Rabbi Dow Marmur z”l
The Marmur Family invites congregants and friends from Toronto and around the world to join them for a Zoom shiva, beginning at 9 am (Toronto time) this Friday, July 22nd. All are welcome to extend personal condolences and to share memories of Rabbi Marmur.
Click here for the link for the Rabbi Dow Marmur z”l Memorial Gathering
To honour Rabbi Marmur’s memory please consider a contribution to the Rabbi Dow Marmur Memorial Fund which supports youth education at Holy Blossom Temple. You may click here to donate online or contact Anna Gurevich in our Development Office at 416-789-3291 ext. 227 or [email protected].
Here is the link to the funeral service in Jerusalem. Longtime family friend, former Member of Knesset, and Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Rabbi Michael Melchior, officiated. Members of the Marmur family and Rabbi Splansky gave very moving eulogies. A number of representatives from Holy Blossom were present as well as the leadership of the Israeli and North American Reform Movement.
The Holy Blossom Temple Archives Committee has prepared a small exhibit in our Schwartz/Reisman Atrium to remember Rabbi Marmur through photographs and documents. Gift copies of two of his books, On Being a Jew and his memoir, Six Lives, are available to pick up throughout Shloshim.
Rabbi Marmur z”l is remembered in The Canadian Jewish News
https://thecjn.ca/lives/dow-marmur-obit/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dow-marmur-obit
and in The Jewish Chronicle
https://www.thejc.com/news/community/former-alyth-rabbi-dow-marmur-has-died-in-israel-5XocFEcFx58h7LaIVXPVKC
https://thecjn.ca/podcasts/death-doesnt-take-a-holiday-remembering-the-biggest-deaths-in-jewish-canada-from-summer-2022/
Excerpts taken from Rabbi Dow Marmur’s interview perspectives with Barry Shainbaum, 2010. CJTW / Faith FM 94.3, Kitchener, ON
Click here for the full recording
Rabbi Bayfield’s obituary for Rabbi Marmur, Jewish Chronicle, London
May his memory be for blessing.
Dear Holy Blossom Temple Family,
Baruch Dayan HaEmet.
I write to you from Jerusalem with a heavy heart. Our rabbi, our teacher, Rabbi Dow Marmur died this morning. He will be laid to rest tomorrow at Har HaMenuchot in the hills of Jerusalem, the city he loved. The Marmur family has invited me to give a eulogy. It will be a great honour to praise my mentor and the one who brought me to Toronto twenty-four years ago. Holy Blossom will also be well-represented tomorrow by a number of congregants who are travelling in Israel now and have made arrangements to attend the funeral. Daniel Abramson, Bambi Katz, Karen Kollins, Les Rothschild, my husband, Adam Sol, and I will stand for the greater Toronto community at the gravesite. You may also join via livestream by following this link: https://livestream.com/bti/funeral-dow-marmur The service will take place on Monday, 6:30 pm Jerusalem time, that is 11:30 am Toronto time.
Rabbi Marmur used to say that a Jew knows how to cry with one eye and laugh with the other. In time, our congregation will find meaningful ways to remember Rabbi Marmur together and to honour his remarkable contributions to Holy Blossom Temple, Canadian Jewry, and the international Reform Movement, but for today, we concentrate on the primary mourners, his family.
You may leave public notes of condolence for the Marmur Family in the comments section below. You may send private letters of condolence to Fredzia Marmur, and their children –Viveca, Michael, and Elizabeth — at Beit Mozes, 52 Beit Lechem Road, Jerusalem, Israel 93504 — or to [email protected].
When Rabbi Marmur retired from Holy Blossom in 2000, a fund was established to support teacher training and excellence in youth education. In the spirit of that initiative, you may wish to honour Rabbi Marmur’s memory by contributing to support Youth Education at Holy Blossom Temple. Please contact Anna Gurevich in our Development Office: 416-789-3291 ext. 227 or [email protected].
Today is a day of fasting and mourning on the Jewish calendar. (Its observance is delayed by one day this year in order to protect the joy of Shabbat.) The 17th of Tammuz is when, according to tradition, the Two Tablets of the Law were broken, when the Tamid sacrifice was no longer offered up in Jerusalem’s First Temple, and when the protective walls of the Second Temple were breached by the Romans. It is a day of collective loss and vulnerability. Without Rabbi Marmur’s teaching of The Law, without his steadfast service, without his protection, we are diminished.
Zichrono Livrachah. May his memory be for blessing.
L’Shalom,
Rabbi Yael Splansky
