Carmine Groberman’s Mitzvah Project combines a good deed with community action

by Maxine Fischbein, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

(AJNews) – There is a time-honoured lament that when it comes to Bar Mitzvahs there is sometimes more bar than mitzvah. That is not the case for the Groberman family, who recently celebrated the Bar Mitzvah of son and brother Carmine at the Beth Tzedec Synagogue.

Carmine’s mitzvah project reveals a young man and family that prioritizes maasei tovim – good deeds – the kind that a community can really get behind.

For his mitzvah project, Carmine chose to help raise funds in support of out of country medical treatment for Calgary Jewish community member Tamara Polo, who suffered catastrophic spinal injuries three years ago.

Tamara’s application to the Out of Country Health Service Committee for coverage by the Alberta Health Care Insurance Plan was denied, as was her subsequent appeal, despite the fact that her condition could not be properly diagnosed and treated here at home due to a lack of vertical imaging capability and highly specialized neck surgeons.

Despite constant pain, Polo still summoned the strength to get to her children’s school from time to time, volunteering at The Calgary Jewish Academy on special occasions like the Chanukah Latke Lunch.

Carmine’s mother, Samantha Groberman, sometimes encountered Polo at CJA, but the women did not know each other beyond casual hellos. Samantha saw Tamara’s neck brace but was unaware of her circumstances and did not want to pry.

When they once again saw each other this past March, Samantha felt compelled to stop and ask Tamara a simple question: “How are you?”

Nothing could have prepared her for the answer she got.

Set to host a Rosh Hashanah gathering at her home in September 2023, Polo was out picking up a fruit platter. In the blink of an eye, her life was changed forever by a careless driver who blew through two stop signs, mowing her down in a Costco parking lot.

And suddenly, Polo, a wife and mother of three – who had enjoyed a great career with a multinational tech company – ended up bedridden for 20 hours a day, unable to stay upright because the pressure of her head on her unstable spine made her feel so ill.

For her part, Samantha Groberman recalls sleepless nights wondering what she could do to help Polo. Another thing that was on her mind was Carmine’s rapidly approaching Bar Mitzvah.

And then it dawned on her.

Samantha had a chat with Carmine, suggesting that he consider taking on a big Bar Mitzvah project, one that would make a difference in the life of a person living in his own community.

Moved by Tamara’s story, and supported by both his mother and father, Josh Groberman, Carmine personally solicited donations for Tamara’s GoFundMe page, which has a goal of $300,000, a modest number given the mounting costs of Tamara’s health care and the associated travel costs, something no young family should have to bear.

After initially travelling to Spain to consult with specialists there, Tamara chose a surgeon a little closer to home, in New York City.

Interviewed last month, less than two weeks before his Bar Mitzvah, Carmine expressed a bit of trepidation in the lead-up to his big day, a sentiment that is not unusual in the evolution of a Bar Mitzvah. By all accounts, he knocked it out of the park to the delight of his family and a special guest…Tamara Polo.

Attendance at the simcha was a herculean feat for a woman recovering, since early June, from a complex 10-level spinal fusion from her skull to the middle of her back to stabilize her spine.

Some days she wakes up wondering if she’s going to make it.

“You don’t bounce back from what I’ve had,” said Tamara “It’s shocking to think how quickly a life can change.”

She says she is uplifted by the outpouring of support by her community, and there is a special place in her heart for Carmine who raised over $17 thousand on her behalf.

“He’s got a very bright future,” says Tamara, who adds that she’s glad Carmine is “learning about advocacy and not accepting the status quo.”

“Those are qualities we all need these days,” Polo added.

Carmine has learned some other great skills along the way. With a little help from his dad, he made personal pitches to potential donors at Barrel Oil Corp, Josh Groberman’s company, which generously matched their donations.

“Carmine was emotionally bothered by the fact that he had done all of this and it felt like a drop in the bucket,” added Samantha, who is outraged that families like Tamara’s must incur enormous debt to get medical care for a loved one when it is not available here.

“I sat up all night thinking about what we could do that would make an impact and make Carmine feel that he’s done something,” added Samantha, who suggested to Carmine that they launch a petition urging the Alberta government to make changes to out of country health care policies they themselves acknowledge to be out of date.

While Samantha had to be the public face of the petition, she credits Carmine with doing much of the legwork.

Their Change.org petition, which has so far garnered some 1,700 signatures, calls on Premier Danielle Smith, Health Minister Justin Wright, and Alberta Health leadership “to urgently review and improve the Out of Country Health Services Committee’s processes in light of Polo’s case and that of two-year-old Myla Lieskovsky, who has also been denied coverage.

Myla suffers from a rare vascular condition called a vascular birthmark, or CM-AVM, which has disfigured her face causing further health complications.

The petition asks that Tamara and Myla’s cases be reviewed “with compassion and reconsideration where possible” and that the government ensure “a clear, fair, and accessible pathway for patients requiring out-of-country care in exceptional circumstances,” and “review and modernize the OOCHSC framework to reflect modern medical realities and complex patient needs.”

“We believe no Albertan should be left without a medically reasonable pathway to care when specialist consensus supports treatment that is not available in Canada,” the petition says.

“If the government will not fund out of country health care that could cure a two-year-old with treatment that is not available in Alberta, and if they are denying to cover the treatment of a mother in her 40s with three children, who couldn’t even be diagnosed in Alberta, well, then who can be approved,” asks Samantha Groberman.

In an online story posted on May 9, 2026, Meghan Cobb reported that Global News received a statement from the province acknowledging that the policies regarding coverage for out of country health care are nearly 20 years old.

“Since then, patient needs have grown more complex and medical treatments and technologies have improved,” the statement went on to say.

The government has promised to review their policies, but the fear is that change may come too late to help people like Tamara and Myla.

If so, Tamara says she hopes the extreme nature of their cases will “help the next guy.”

In the meantime, Tamara takes comfort in an outpouring of support both at home and well beyond Calgary, where she was born and raised.

She told AJNews that following her first surgery – an occipitocervical fusion (C0-C2) – it became evident that the damage to her spine was far greater than had, at first, been thought. The more extensive spinal reconstruction she underwent this past June, necessitated the addition of a second surgeon to her medical team.

In an act of lovingkindness, that doctor operated pro bono, knowing that Tamara did not have coverage.

From the hands of that angel of mercy to those of others, Tamara was cared for by the Hatzalah Air Response Team, part of an extensive network of similarly named Jewish non-profits that, in addition to other medical services, provides emergency medical aid transport all over the world for qualifying individuals in urgent need of medical support, regardless of their religion and at no cost to them.

Tamara is also grateful to the anonymous Toronto philanthropist who made a generous donation via Chai Lifeline Canada to cover the cost of the post-surgery flight home in a medically equipped plane.

Carmine’s B’nai Mitzvah classmates at Beth Tzedec have, like him, been engaged in tzedakah projects supporting a variety of causes, such as donating to Magen David Adom; raising funds and collecting used sports equipment for kids in need; and spending time with residents living in seniors’ homes.

“I’m so proud of Carmine,” said Samantha Groberman, adding, “He has great friends. They’re all really, really good kids.”

Fittingly, a Global News story about Carmine’s efforts on behalf of Tamara and Myla aired the same day he celebrated his 13^th birthday. Gathered in the Groberman family’s living room, Carmine and his friends and family, which includes younger brothers Charlie and Chandler, enjoyed a watch party as part of the birthday festivities.

Carmine says that in the lead-up to his Bar Mitzvah, Rabbi Cantor Russell Jayne shared an interesting observation as they discussed an important mitzvah referred to in his Torah portion, Ki Teitzei:  If you see your fellow’s ass or ox fallen on the road, do not ignore it; you must help him raise it. (Deuteronomy 22:4.)

“The Rabbi explained that…if we see someone struggling, then we have to help,” Carmine told AJNews.

Rabbi Jayne says that as he and Carmine were going over the Torah portion, Carmine became very focussed “on this idea that Jewish people don’t ignore problems in the world, whether they occur within their own community or society at large.”

“I love it when my students can take the Torah and actually see it in universalistic terms,” Rabbi Jayne added.

Tamara Polo says that during her excruciating journey she has “experienced the worst and the best of humanity.”

“It’s people like Carmine and Samantha who have lifted me up,” adds Tamara. “They took an interest in what I was going through and then made the decision not to turn a blind eye, to actually do something.”

Accepting help has not been easy for Tamara and her family, who are more accustomed to giving than taking, helping others in their community, their hockey community, and their neighbourhood.

Tamara says she could never have imagined being in a position where she would have to rely on others and turn to crowdfunding.

“But what are you going to do,” asks Tamara. “I cannot look at my children and say that they will not have a mother because of money.”

There is probably not a single person who cannot imagine themselves or a loved one, God forbid, in the position that Tamara Polo now finds herself. On September 14, she and her family, including husband Richard Brunner and children Nathan (16), Sydney (11), and Jordan (9), will mark three years since the disaster that altered their lives forever.

By then, the Jewish community will have entered the Ten Days of Repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The High Holidays liturgy tells us that in addition to engaging in prayer and repentance, we can lessen God’s decree through acts of kindness, charity, and justice.

We can tip the scale, and it is a cause for both celebration and emulation that a Bar Mitzvah – Carmine Groberman – has helped to show us the way.

To donate to the GoFundMe page in support of Tamara Polo, go to gofundme.com/f/hope-for-tamara-surgery-and-recovery-fund

To sign Carmine and Samantha’s GoFundMe petition, go to https://c.org/qDbw4Lz9Kn