On the evening of Yom Kippur, Beverly’s Temple B’nai Abraham honored two couples who have been members for nearly 60 years for embodying the temple’s guiding value of nediv lev, a generous heart.

Before the start of Kol Nidre, the temple on East Lothrop Street honored Dr. Harold and Zelda “Zellie” Kaplan and Dr. Joel and Bonnie Shelkrot.

The couples have been friends since joining the temple in the late 1960s. They raised their families at the temple and the Kaplans’ grandchildren are graduates of its Hebrew school.

The four of them have collectively served on the temple’s board of directors, sisterhood board and the finance committee.

Bonnie Shelkrot served as the temple’s president in 1981-82 and was instrumental in supporting the Nediv Lev campaign during its launch in 2021, according to the temple. The Shelkrots also support the temple’s Rabbinic Chair, one of the pillars of the campaign that supports the temple’s clergy.

The Kaplan Family Fund supports the temple’s library and learning center classroom, the music program, family education and free monthly Shabbat dinners, which has enabled the building of relationships across generations, according to opening remarks Rabbi Alison Adler provided the Journal honoring the couples.

“And with profound gratitude, on this holy evening, we thank and bless four people who have been important parts of the life in this community, and continue to help shape and strengthen it,” Adler said in her remarks.

In addition, both couples support and have been heavily involved in organizations in the wider Jewish community.

Bonnie Shelkrot worked as a development officer at the Anti-Defamation League New England and is a member of the ADL’s New England Regional Board and North Shore Advisory Committee. She is a past chair of the North Shore Advisory Committee.
She was also part of the group that founded the Jewish Journal.

“Here are four people who embody our guiding values,” Adler said in her remarks, “which include the most recently adopted value, nediv lev, which means ‘generous heart’ – bringing themselves, their skills, passion and financial support to strengthening a community they care about.”

Adler said the couples raised their children at the temple and at Epstein Hillel School.

They shared carpools to the school with the Axelrods, including with High Holiday Cantor Matt Axelrod, the Bakers and the Myersons, Adler told the congregation. Adler said she learned the morning of the service their daughter, Lisa, was the first girl to celebrate a Saturday morning bat mitzvah on the bimah.

Zellie Kaplan served on the team that translated and scanned a collection donated to Salem State University’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Adler said.

“I am just touching the surface,” Adler said during her remarks, “and of course we know that what they do is because of who they are, not for the recognition. That is why it makes sense that we are doing this now, tonight, in this sanctuary.”

Bonnie Shelkrot said she and her husband arrived on the North Shore in 1969 with their two children, an 18-month-old and a 4-year-old. The couple were from Pittsburgh, but then lived in Columbus, Ohio, for her husband’s training. They then lived in Little Rock, Arkansas, where her husband was stationed in the Air Force. They later moved to Newton while her husband was studying at Tufts University.

They moved again to Danvers in 1969 and then moved to Magnolia in Gloucester for 39 years before moving to Beverly.

“We were a long way from family and for us being part of the temple is extended family,” she said.

She said being part of the Jewish community meant participating in it in a variety of ways over a long time.

“It was very meaningful for us to be honored by the community,” she said.

“I thought it was very nice,” said Harold Kaplan. “We appreciated it very much. The community has been very good to us.”

“By strengthening this holy place, you strengthen the Jewish future,” Adler said in her remarks. Θ