By Cynthia Nyman Engel

The first time he was invited to sit on the Jewish Community Council of Ottawa/Vaad Ha’Ir’s executive committee, Ron Prehogan’s answer was definite.

“No,” he said. “My kids are still living at home. Call me after they’re out of the house.”

The balebatim were patient. They knew Prehogan had been very effective as president of the Jewish Community Centre (JCC); they wanted their man and were prepared to wait for him. When the time was right, the phone rang again.

“OK,” the caller said, “your kids are out of the house. Now will you join us?”

He did.

Remembering the conversation, Prehogan smiles.

 “I had lived up to that commitment to my family,” he chuckles. “The Vaad was respectful of that and they gave me no choice.”

As he had done with the JCC, Prehogan gave 110 per cent to the task at hand. He quickly moved up through the ranks of the executive and, in June 2005, took the reins as the first chair of the board of the newly minted Jewish Federation of Ottawa, which replaced the Vaad.

In recognition of his steadfast commitment to Ottawa’s Jewish community, Ron Prehogan will receive the 2010 Gilbert Greenberg Distinguished Service Award. The award is the highest tribute the Ottawa Jewish community bestows on an individual for exceptional service over the course of many years. Initiated in 1980, it bears the name of the late Gilbert Greenberg, a Vaad past-president who exemplified the qualities of leadership the award seeks to recognize each year.

Prehogan was born and raised in Montreal. After earning law degrees from McGill University in 1976 and 1977, he and his wife, Avalee, moved to Ottawa where he started practising law and she started teaching at Hillel Academy. Save for a two-year sojourn in Toronto from 1982 to1984, the Prehogans have proudly called Ottawa home ever since.
Prehogan credits his long-time mentor, Sol Shinder, with fostering his interest in Jewish communal affairs.

“Sol was a senior partner of the law firm that I started with and I looked up to him so much,” he says. “He was the one who taught me the importance of giving back to the community. I soon joined the board of the JCC on Chapel Street and worked my way up to president.”

During his term as JCC president, the Broadview Campus was taking shape.

“There were many major decisions to be made concerning the final drawings of the Broadview facility, and therefore my board and I had significant input to make,” he says. “Specifically, we proposed the new JCC program lineup include a pre-kindergarten program. It was a very controversial proposal at the time, but we were very committed to establishing an early childhood education (ECE) wing in the JCC.

“I had visited and researched other JCCs in North America and was determined that the new building would have a significant Judaic component to it. If all we were building was a fitness facility, we were wasting our time. Our expression at the time was that we needed to ‘put the J back in the JCC.’ Our intelligence had also shown us that the three pillars of a financially successful JCC were fitness, summer camp and early childhood education.”

Although the proposed ECE program was contentious, Prehogan and his board had done their homework thoroughly and were adamant that the proposal be accepted. Today, in addition to its popular summer camp and excellent fitness facility, the Soloway JCC boasts the well-run and well-attended Ganon Pre-School program.

As chair of the Federation, one of Prehogan’s early priorities was to enhance relations with community agencies.

“I had attended a session in Israel on federation/agency relations and was struck with the speaker’s suggestion that, in discussions with agencies, we needed to focus less on our separate turf issues and more on what we had in common, which was the significant continuation of the Jewish people,” he explains.

His other goal was to elevate the level of conversation in the community through a community symposium, which was held in 2007.

“It worked,” he says proudly. “As a result of the symposium, we now have a Hillel House in Sandy Hill and enhanced funding of the Vered Jewish Canadian Studies Program at the University of Ottawa. The symposium also laid the groundwork for important initiatives which are being undertaken on Jewish education in the community.”

Prehogan’s passion for Jewish life was sparked on a trip to Israel when he was 17.

“The feeling of Jewish pride got into my blood on that trip, and never got out,” he says.

During his period of community involvement, Prehogan, 56, somehow found the time to start a family business consulting firm that he is now fully occupied with called Equitas Consultants Inc., an affiliate of his law firm, BrazeauSeller.LLP.

As well as chairing the Federation and JCC boards, Prehogan sat on the board of the Jewish Community Centers of North America (JCCA), chaired its JCCA Israel Task Force and the Canadian Council of Jewish Community Centres, and chaired the Jewish Federation of Ottawa Leadership Symposium and the Federation’s Strategic Planning Task Force. Currently, he is vice-chair of the board of the Queensway-Carleton Hospital Foundation and also sits on the board of Canadian Jewish Congress.

Ron and Avalee Prehogan are the proud parents of dentist Harris, daughter-in-law Ilana, who is doing a pediatric residency at CHEO, and Dara, who this spring is graduating from veterinary school and starting an internship in Manhattan.

“As my Dad has always said, the kids are the greatest assets on our balance sheet,” Prehogan smiles.n a trip to Israel when he was 17.