Angry in the Great White North

Rabbi Mendel Kaplan is a well-known name in Toronto's Jewish community:

Born in 1971 in Norfolk, Virginia, Rabbi Kaplan attended Ivy League Yeshiva Schools in New York City during his adolescence. At this time, he contributed regularly to local scholarly journals authoring dozens of original expositions and ruminations in Hebrew. It was also then that he his remarkable artistic talent blossomed as well as he took a leadership role in numerous extracurricular activities.

In 1990 after graduating from Oholie Torah Rabbinical Seminary in NYC, at the behest of the celebrated Lubavitcher Rebbe, he went on to serve the secular Jewish community in Los Angeles for a two year Rabbinic internship program in Yeshiva Ohr Elchonon - Chabad in West Hollywood.

Upon returning he spent two years of post-graduate study in the prestigious Tomchie Temimim Academy in NYC. He was at that time appointed to an elite coterie of Students referred to as The Kanim ( Branches of the [Illuminating] Menorah), and was represented in the 1993-94 edition of The National Dean's List. Kaplan also held educational positions at the Yeshiva Colleges in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Petersburg, Russia respectively.

In August of 1997 Rabbi Kaplan chose to leave the insular Yeshiva world entirely in order to pursue his passion; imparting the depth of Jewish tradition and teaching to the secular world.

Before emigrating to Canada in 1998, the Rabbi served as the scholar-in-residence at the prestigious Mayanote Insitue for Jewish Studies in Centre City Jerusalem for several months.

In April of 1998, he and his Torontonian born and bred wife Faygie, founded Chabad @ Flamingo to serve the affiliated and unaffiliated Jewish population living on the northern edge of Thornhill.

Since his arrival in Toronto, the Rabbi has become a regular guest on numerous local television and radio programs. Rabbi Kaplan's face and voice have become familiar to the public as he is increasingly called upon to address timely, topical as well as general issues for Canadian Jewry.

Rabbi Kaplan also serves as a Chaplain of the York Regional Police.

I think it's worth noting Rabbi Kaplan's biography because (a) it shows him not to be particularly political, (b) it shows him to be engaged in the community at large, and (c) it is damn impressive!

And yet as impressive as his biography is, Rabbi Kaplan is clearly a man with deep ties in the community.  Rabbi Kaplan is an Orthodox Jew, and some people see them as insular and disconnected.  Rabbi Kaplan doesn't seem to be that sort.  I don't get the sense that he is an ivory tower sort of rabbi (not that deep thinkers don't have a valuable role to play), but is a regular guy.  A mensch.

Rabbi Kaplan has a few words for people, like Garth Turner, who are trying to make Stephen Harper out to be some sort of soulless political ogre:

Garth Turner's recent book excerpt, 'Me vs Stephen Harper,' which appeared in the National Post contained, in my view, a gratuitous character assassination of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

I have never worked for or with, Mr. Harper and never had the opportunity of a private meeting. However, I have had the good fortune of meeting him publicly five times, most recently on the day Mr. Turner's scathing article was printed. I think Canadians now have the right to see him from a totally different perspective.

The impression my peers and I had (and let me add that nearly all of us had met prime ministers and presidents before) was of an exceptionally affable, friendly and witty leader who went the extra mile to put his constituents at ease. His tone and demeanor were remarkably respectful and congenial, and all were impressed by his understated quiet charisma.

Last month the prime minister honoured our community by personally participating in our newly expanded Synagogue-Community Centre's grand opening in Thornhill.

In the days that followed I had the opportunity to speak with many who attended our grand opening ceremony. Regardless of religious affiliations, ethnicities and political persuasions within the non-homogeneous crowd, the feedback was essentially uniform. People were simply "blown away." Everybody believed that we have a prime minister who is engaging, warm, friendly, and above all, humble.

And many were genuinely surprised. One friend, an Italian Catholic, said to me: "I never thought of him that way, he's always portrayed as being cold, arrogant and indifferent.. Close up he really isn't like that at all!"

You can agree or disagree with the Conservative party's policies and you can wish somebody else was occupying this office, but I don't think you can say that our current prime minister isn't a decent, sincere and caring man.

Quite the different depiction than what we get from Garth Turner.  But then Garth Turner is a political operative, working to an agenda, and with a huge axe to grind.  Rabbi Mendel Kaplan is just a guy of deep faith who likes to help people.

Hopefully regular thoughtful Canadians get a measure of their information from other regular thoughtful people, like Rabbi Kaplan, instead of just from the likes of Garth Turner, for whom being one of the "regular people" could be just one more political game.