Rich Harwood (Photo credit: Helene Harwood)
On Nov. 23, at a luncheon with dozens of Congregation Tifereth Israel members, Rich Harwood was given the Marlon Meyer Award for Man of the Year. Yet it was more like a lifetime achievement honor.
Harwood, 82, has been involved with the Bensalem synagogue since moving to the area 46 years ago. He initially joined for the same reason many Jews join: to raise a family in the place.
Harwood’s three children, two daughters and a son, all had b’nai mitzvahs at Tifereth Israel. But in 1994, he became president of the synagogue too, due to his willingness to speak openly and honestly about its affairs.
During his two-year term, he helped stabilize membership and grow the Hebrew and nursery schools. Then he went back to being a member, though he would later serve as co-president.
In 2022, Harwood was again called to leadership. Tifereth Israel’s Men’s Club had passed away along with its former leader. But it was Harwood and Todd Sokol, a fellow member, who stepped forward to bring it back. Today, 50 of the shul’s 140 or so congregants participate in Men’s Club activities.
Harwood “never says no when there’s a need,” said Rich Wadloff, a TI member who sent out the press release about the Man of the Year honor.
“I don’t seek leadership positions. I really don’t,” Harwood said. “It’s just that I do rather than talk. When I see something that needs to be done, I do it.”
The Bensalem resident was not always so committed to Jewish life. His last day of Hebrew school, as he put it, was the day before his bar mitzvah. Then, from age 13 to 33, he didn’t set foot in a shul.
Hebrew school, as he saw it then, had prevented him from playing ball with his friends.
“Going to Hebrew school was not fun, not for an 8- to 13-year-old, especially when your friends are outside playing ball,” he recalled. “I lived a Jewish life, but I didn’t observe anything. I grew up a secular Jew.”
But when Harwood was 33, his father died, and his mother guilted him into going to minyan one morning. Harwood lived in Olney, and the nearest synagogue was Melrose B’nai Israel in Melrose Park Gardens. As he remembered it, he walked in at 6:30 a.m. and “prayed with the older men.”
“They taught me this, and they taught me that,” he added, laughing.
But more importantly, he felt it.
“That was a life-changing experience,” Harwood concluded.
It continued when he moved with his wife to Bensalem. The couple chose the Bucks County town because Harwood’s wife’s sister lived there, and because it would make for an easier commute to Montgomery County for Harwood’s job at pharmaceutical company Merck.
Before they even moved, they joined Tifereth Israel. After attending the minyan, Harwood had become an active member at Melrose B’nai Israel, even joining its board. Board members at MBI connected him to board members at TI, who asked him to join their board as well.
That was 1979. By the mid-’80s, TI had undergone demographic change. Young families who had bought their first homes in Bensalem were moving to Yardley, Richboro and other nearby towns in Bucks County.
Harwood and his family stayed because they liked the Bensalem Township School District. His commitment was part of the reason he agreed to serve as president of TI. And in doing so, he helped preserve the town and synagogue’s small but steady population of Jews.
Synagogues in Yardley (Congregation Kol Emet), Richboro (Ohev Shalom of Bucks County) and Newtown (Shir Ami) all have higher membership numbers, but the Bensalem shul is there for those who need it.
“Every year, our average age seems to increase,” Harwood acknowledged.
TI is trying to implement a long-term fundraising program to secure its future, and is also attempting to attract new members.
Until it does either or both, the synagogue will just have to press ahead. Maybe Harwood will step forward again to help.
“Somebody has to do it,” he said.