Rabbi Stephen Wise

Rabbi Stephen Wise is the spiritual leader of Shaarei-Beth El Congregation of Oakville, Ontario, Canada. Rabbi Wise is the chair of the Interfaith Council of Halton, a member of the Halton Police Service multi-faith taskforce and treasurer of the Reform Rabbis of Greater Toronto.  He is an author and speaker on Israel as a “start-up nation”, with his first book “Israel: Repairing the World”. Rabbi Wise and his wife Cheryl, the director of Education at SBE, have 3 young children, Jacob, Talia and Alexa.

Joining Together As Children of Abraham to Welcome Refugees

Rabbi Stephen Wise
The Syrian refugee crisis has dominated the news since the beginning of Syria’s bloody civil war in 2011, which so far has killed 250,000 people and created a staggering four million refugees. For communities of faith, the answer was obvious even before the picture of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi lying dead in the Mediterranean surf generated headlines worldwide: we must do what we can to help bring them to a safe and welcoming home. But, what was not so obvious was the steps we needed to take to make our hope a reality.