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A Scholarly Rabbinic Career: Rabbi Roy Furman on His 50 Years in the Rabbinate

Rabbi Roy Furman reflects upon his half-century as a Reform rabbi.

During my years at HUC-JIR, my expectations of a future rabbinate were vague, at best. What 50 years after ordination actually held were beyond what I could then have imagined. It would certainly prove to be a multifaceted rabbinate, one which extended the boundaries of how I would be a rabbi and what sort of congregation I would serve. It has been an interesting journey to say the least. 

That journey first took me to Los Angeles where I served as Hillel director on the campus of the University of Southern California. There I immersed myself in the creative challenges and rewards of working with students developing a vibrant campus Jewish community. Four years later, I decided to enhance my counseling skills by studying for and obtaining an MSW, followed by another four years practicing clinical social work at Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles. 

By the ten-year mark after HUC-JIR, I sought congregational work for the first time, moving with my wife to Portland, Oregon to work with a small, participatory, egalitarian, and very spiritual chavurah. The five years with that community were my idea of rabbinic heaven. I would still be there, I imagine, if my wife did not need to relocate to pursue her academic aspirations.

If Chicago did not readily yield to my rabbinic needs and aspirations, it did provide me with the opportunity to work with a gay and lesbian community, with a suburban congregation in an assistant rabbinical position, and another two years as interim rabbi for a large Reconstructionist shul.

Through the years, I took great pleasure in doing scholarly work, including PhD studies in ancient Judaism and early Christianity. Having served as a rabbi on a college campus, at Jewish family service, with a chavurah, and with three Chicago-based Jewish communities, I now entered the academic part of my rabbinic journey. Some twenty-three years after ordination, I began teaching comparative religions and Jewish studies at DePaul University, an adjunct position I held for twenty years, along with part-time work as campus rabbi. 

At the forty-sixth year post ordination mark, I entered a year-long training program in clinical pastoral education and continued working as a chaplain in an acute hospital setting until the Spring of 2020 and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And through all of these years, my rabbinate has been expanded and enriched through interactions with Jews in congregations, both old and newly emerging, in Russia, Germany, Poland, Spain, France, Chile, and Morocco.

From the time I left HUC-JIR until the present, I have been active as a leader, facilitator, and member of chavurot and minyanim. That aspect of my journey reflects much of what has come to be important and meaningful for me as a rabbi and as a Jew, as I have met, taught, counseled, comforted, andlearned from many, many wonderful people along the way. I continue to write divrei Torah for my minyan, study Hasidic and Mussar literature with Rabbi Richard Hirsh, my long-time chevruta and dear brother-in-law, and to be challenged by the likes of Maimonides, Heschel, Buber,  Hartman, and the Baal Shem Tov.


Rabbi Roy Furman is celebrating 50 years in the Reform Rabbinate.

We look forward to celebrating 50- and 51-year rabbis when we come together online at CCAR Convention 2021, March 14-17, 2021. CCAR Convention 2021 will strengthen us spiritually, emotionally, and professionally, bringing us together at a time when we need it more than ever. CCAR rabbis can register here.

One reply on “A Scholarly Rabbinic Career: Rabbi Roy Furman on His 50 Years in the Rabbinate”

Rabbi “Rockin’ Roy” Furman married me and my husband, Mark Jordan, 40 years ago on November 1 at Havurah Shalom in Portland. Mark was not Jewish at the time and we could not find a rabbi in Texas to marry us – although Mark did not have another faith practice and we had a fully Jewish home. Mark and I had moved to Portland for him to attend law school, and was immediately welcomed by Rabbi Roy (the “rockin” moniker came from Mark, who appreciated his shuckling when Roy davenned). The music was astounding there, and I consider these roots to have inspired my career as a multi-published award-winning Jewish rock artist (my band is Sababa). We moved back to Texas after the birth of our daughter, Jessica (Roy did her brit bat) – and he may remember when I was pregnant with her and had a tonic seizure – on the bimah while holding the Torah – on Yom Kippur. And yes, I dropped the Torah. Without his support, I never would have become a cantor and then a rabbi – he affirmed for me the big tent philosophy, a spiritual and community practice that defines me. I am proud to have been one of the first cantors to do interfaith marriages (every couple I have married has raised Jewish children), and the first cantor in Texas to do same-sex marriages. Thank you, Rockin’ Roy!

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