Divine ties that bind

As Ari Lipman strode to the pulpit at Temple Salem Seventh-day Adventist Church two weeks ago, he looked completely out of place -- yet seemed entirely at home. And both with good reason.

As the only white face in a Dorchester church filled with Haitian congregants, the young community organizer with the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization couldn't help but stand out in the crowd. To say nothing of the fact that his Jewish upbringing had offered little guidance in the ways of evangelical Christians. With a mix of determination and diplomacy, however, the 26-year-old Harvard graduate has broken down any barriers those differences might have posed, engaging the 1,100-member congregation -- and a half-dozen other Haitian churches -- in the interfaith organization's mission to bring religious and civic groups together to promote social change. But the son of suburban Washington, D.C., thinks there may be even greater forces at work to explain the bond he has forged with those on Woodrow Avenue.

The cornerstone for the building was laid in 1921 by immigrants who, like many Temple Salem members today, arrived in the United States seeking a better life for their families. The original name remains etched in Hebrew letters on the stone facing above the building entrance: Congregation Agudas Israel. And among the orthodox Jewish synagogue's early members was one Abraham Lipman, Lithuanian immigrant, tailor-shop presser, union president -- and great-grandfather of modern-day activist Ari Lipman.

''Astounded" is how Ari Lipman describes his reaction when conversations with his grandfather revealed the unlikely twist of fate.

Lipman, who grew up in Chevy Chase, Md., knew his great-grandfather and his grandfather had lived in Dorchester. But he had no idea when he began organizing Haitian churches for the interfaith organization three years ago that he was not only working in their old neighborhood, but gathering with church members in the very building where his great-grandfather prayed and his grandfather attended Hebrew school classes as a young boy.

''I started asking him about his life here, none of which I had ever asked and none of which he had ever shared. It ended up being the basis for our relationship during the last year of his life," Lipman says of his grandfather, Henry Lipman, who died last year at age 87.

The discovery also became the basis for the strong ties he has formed with Temple Salem and its spiritual leader, Pastor Pierre Omeler. ''There was an immediate bonding between us once I learned that," Omeler says of Lipman's family roots at the handsome house of worship.

Temple Salem bought the building in 1971, part of the wholesale changeover of synagogues into churches that occurred as Jews left Dorchester and Mattapan for Boston's suburbs in the 1960s and '70s.

One thing that didn't change at the Woodrow Avenue building was the main day of worship. Seventh-day Adventists, like Jews, observe the Sabbath on Saturday. Their pastoral training also includes intensive Hebrew study, and Omeler says each time he mounts the pulpit, he draws inspiration from the Hebrew inscription that remains on the original ornate wood panels behind him: ''Our father, open the doors of heaven to our prayers."

Lipman's passion for grass-roots organizing was stoked by several years of volunteering at a student-run shelter for the homeless run by Harvard students in the basement of a Cambridge church. But soldiering for social change is also in his blood. His grandfather taught labor history to union members, at one point working with the famed Chicago community organizer Saul Alinsky, whose philosophy heavily informs the interfaith organization's approach. Meanwhile, his great-grandfather served as president of the presser's local, convening union meetings in the basement of Congregation Agudas Israel.

''Religious congregations have always been entry points in public life for immigrant groups," says Lipman. ''It was as true for my great-grandfather 80 years ago as it is today for the Haitian community."

Lipman also takes inspiration for his work from the Jewish precept of tikkun olam -- working to repair the world.

That passion skipped one generation in his family, however. His father opted for more corporeal repair work and today is the chief of gastroenterology at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington.

''I knew none of this," Dr. Tim Lipman says of his family's Dorchester history. ''It's an incredible story of coming full circle, and of a religious center that continues to be used for social justice by the immigrant community of the time."

As the May 15 Temple Salem service wound down, Lipman was asked to address the congregants.

''Good morning. Bonjour. Good Sabbath," he said.

''As we say in my own tradition, Shabbat shalom," Lipman added, offering the Hebrew greeting for the Sabbath.

Though he has shared the tale with Temple Salem members before, he recounted the improbable story of his family ties to the church building and described the special meaning it has given him as he works with members there. Then it was down to business.

The interfaith organization was preparing for a huge meeting the following week, and Lipman wanted to make sure Temple Salem would make good on its commitment to send at least 75 members to the session, slated to address two issues of particular importance to the Haitian community. At the gathering, which took place Monday night, Citizens Bank announced plans to handle wire transfers of money overseas for fees substantially less than those now charged by fund-transfer companies servicing Haiti.

''It's going to have a tremendous impact," says Temple Salem member Eddly Benoit, explaining how much family members in Haiti depend on money sent from relatives in the United States.

The interfaith organization also unveiled a ''Bill of Rights" for nursing home workers, which it plans to push the operators of those homes to agree to. Haitians represent a huge portion of the nursing home workforce in Eastern Massachusetts.

Though Lipman confesses to a ''staggering inability to pick up, pronounce, or retain foreign languages," that has not seemed to impede his ability to reach out to Haitian Creole-speaking church members. Among the issues where he's played a role, according to Eno Mondsir, chairman of Haitian-Americans United: helping raise money for disaster relief in Haiti following last week's floods. ''Language has not been a barrier for Ari," says Pierre Imbert, executive director of the Catholic Charities Haitian Multi-Service Center. ''He's managed to be one of us whenever we get together."

Some of that has come by sheer determination. ''He does not give up, he takes his work very seriously," says Imbert. Lipman can reel off the names of clergy from Haitian churches throughout Dorchester and Mattapan. ''I can tell you all their cellphone numbers, too," he says with a grin.

But Haitian leaders say his success has come equally from studiously soaking up Haitian history and culture, if not its spoken language. ''Many times I will be speaking with him and Ari will be talking about such and such a book written by a Haitian author, and I have to go find out what that book was," says Omeler, the Temple Salem pastor.

Lipman plans to return to Harvard next year to pursue a master's degree in Christian theology at the divinity school. He wants to continue organizing faith-based communities, either here or back in Maryland, and thinks the graduate program will be helpful. ''I got very little grounding in the New Testament in Hebrew school growing up," he says.

As for the fact that his work now brings him to the pulpit behind which the sacred Torah scrolls read by his great-grandfather once rested, the soft-spoken organizer finds it hard not to wonder about the possibility that a divine hand somehow led a Lipman back to Woodrow Ave.

''I mean what are the chances?" he asks. ''It makes you feel like you're in the right place at the right time doing the right thing."

Omeler concurs.

''It's more than coincidence," he says. ''It's providence."

Michael Jonas can be reached at jonas@globe.com.