‘Coolest thing’ Shopify exec has ever done
DONATES $500K TO HELP CREATE SYNAGOGUE, COMMUNITY CENTRE
Harley Finkelstein is part of a new generation of philanthropists. The kind who wears a black T-shirt to work, or commutes on a motorized skateboard, or rolls in a Mercedes-Benz ragtop coupe. The kind who ditches law to join a startup in 2010 in little offices over a restaurant and, eight years later, is chief operating officer when the company goes gonzoglobal with 3,000 employees.
The kind who does it all before age 35. Yeah, that kind.
So now it’s time to give back, twopoint-oh. Finkelstein, the COO at Shopify, says he’s proudest of his newest startup: a synagogue and community centre in the east Ottawa neighbourhood of Sandy Hill.
The tech executive has donated $500,000 and helped to raise another $1.2 million or so to create the Finkelstein Chabad Jewish Centre.
“This is the coolest thing I’ve ever done,” he said during a tour of the converted apartment building, which will undergo a major renovation over the winter and spring.
It is a homecoming of sorts. A native of Montreal, Finkelstein arrived in Ottawa in 2005 to study law and earn an MBA at the University of Ottawa. He barely knew a soul.
But every Friday, he says, a figure would appear in and around Fauteux Hall, the law building: Rabbi Chaim Boyarsky, who was checking in on Jewish students, inviting many of them back to his home for dinner. (So many, says Finkelstein, that 50 students would crowd into his house for gatherings that were social, religious and comforting.)
The two stayed in touch, to the degree the rabbi used to drop into Shopify’s offices in the ByWard Market, before the online retail support company’s massive expansion.
One day, he thought, he will pay the rabbi back.
Eventually, Shopify had its initial public offering and Finkelstein was a wealthy man.
The day had come. After a lengthy real estate search, they closed the deal on the three-storey building Aug. 31.
“I told him I was going to write the biggest cheque I’d ever written, which was half a million dollars.”
More a cultural Jew than a religious one, Finkelstein sees the centre as a community hub, where students and young people can congregate for services, enjoy a meal, seek counselling, listen to music, enrol in programs, or even crash for the night in a studio apartment.
A father of one, his wife, Lindsay Taub, is expecting a second child and Ottawa is going to be their permanent home. So they are laying roots. Finkelstein said he struggled with whether to go public with the size of his donation but decided to do so as a means of leading by example in a cause he believes in.
“I want to do more than write cheques. If you’re in a city that you care about, and you’ve have success, you have to pay it forward. It is unacceptable not to. That is not how you grow a community.”
Charity, in fact, is a central part of the Jewish faith and there is little doubt that Ottawa’s relatively small community has donated massive amounts of money to the public good over the years.
Rabbi Boyarsky said charity is taught to Jews at a young age.
“When my kids get their allowance, even when I get my salary, at least 10 per cent goes to charity. We believe that money doesn’t belong to us. It’s ingrained in our psyche.”
The rabbi, an emissary from the Chabad branch of Judaism that focuses on college campuses, said he’s been doing his ministry from his house, nearby rented space, or even his car. It makes a huge difference to have a permanent home, he said, one within walking distance of the campus and offices employing young professionals.
“It was a blessing from God.” One of his Saturday morning services used to attract about 10 people he said, but last week had 45. More importantly, though, it acts as a dropin centre, seven days a week for the school’s roughly 1,500 Jews.
“It has created a safe space for students going through an emotional breakup or a hard time at school or a hard time with their parents. They can come there and not be judged,” said the rabbi.
“We’re accepting of everyone, no strings attached.”
The rabbi said Jews in their 50s tend to be much more generous than those, like Finkelstein, in their 30s.
“He’s young, he’s cool, he’s hip. He could have bought a trip to Bermuda.”