Tag: 50 years in the rabbinate

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Rabbinic Reflections

Valuing the Torah of My Life: Rabbi Laura Geller Reflects on 50 Years as a Reform Rabbi

There were thirty-nine (or so) men and me in that HUC-JIR entering class in Jerusalem in 1971. Many were there to get out of the draft; I was there to figure out what being Jewish meant to me. I was shaped by the identity politics of the late ’60s at Brown University—civil rights, anti-war, feminism—and the two white male Protestant chaplains who modeled a connection between spirituality and social justice.

That first year was hard: my friends were wives of some of the guys in my class, struggling like me with how one can be both Jewish and feminist. My next four years were divided between Los Angeles and New York—also not easy years. I was singled out for humiliation by Professor Steven Passamaneck, but in those days, challenging a tenured faculty for inappropriate behavior was unthinkable. I knew then of President Gottschalk’s inappropriate relationships with other women students. It was only years later (2021) that HUC released the investigation which revealed the sexual harassment, racism, misogyny and homophobia that had existed for years. I’m proud that HUC committed to do teshuvah. I was moved beyond words by the reordination ceremony when Rabbi Andrea Weiss put her hands on me and blessed me.

What did I learn from those early experiences? Beyond the Torah of tradition that HUC taught me, I learned to value the Torah of my life and to explore how each enriched the other.

My work over the years of my rabbinate was varied, challenging and fulfilling. After ordination, I served for fourteen years as the Hillel director at the University of Southern California. My mentor Rabbi Richard Levy taught that everything a rabbi did was holy, from teaching, to counseling, to empowering student and faculty leaders, to encouraging university officials to pay attention to the role of spirituality in higher education. All holy work—including shlepping chairs.

Next I was the regional director of the American Jewish Congress. I learned during those years (1990–1994) how complicated social justice work can be and that this too was holy work. The Los Angeles uprising was in 1992; what followed were years of intense community organizing and reorganizing. I learned how important it was to listen to the experience of people very different from me, and to recognize the ways in which my own privilege as an upper middle class white cisgender woman sometimes made the work of building coalitions difficult. The issues: police reform, intergroup coalitions, gun violence, pro-choice advocacy, Middle East peace, and economic justice (particularly around sweatshop conditions) opened my mind and my heart. And at the same time, my work to create the first Jewish Feminist Center gave me a safe space to find new ways to celebrate the Torah of my life.

When I was forty-four, Joshua was twelve, and Elana was five, Wilshire Boulevard Temple was looking for a Westside address; Temple Emanuel was facing bankruptcy. The leadership of both temples and the senior rabbis supported a merger. Bylaws required that there be a congregational vote; it was defeated by twenty-six votes. Suddenly Emanuel was looking for a rabbi, and I was looking for a new position. The idea of being a part of transforming a challenged synagogue was exciting to me. Even though I had not one day of congregational experience, Emanuel decided to give me a chance. So I became the first women selected in a national search to be the senior rabbi of a major metropolitan synagogue. The headline was: “Woman Rabbi Smashes Stained Glass Ceiling.” The real headline should have been: you can begin your career anywhere and end up anywhere. Take chances. Follow what you love.

I loved the work. Together with lay leaders and talented colleagues, we created a culture that celebrated our different talents, a web of connections rather than a hierarchical structure. We took chances with innovative programs. During those years I was a fellow at the Hartman Institute, part of the first cohort of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, and a trustee on the Corporation of Brown University.  Each of those opportunities helped me become the rabbi that I am. I am grateful that I was so often in the right place at the right time.

A few years after I came to Emanuel I found my soulmate, Richard Siegel, z”l. We worked together on a project that became the book Getting Good at Getting Older. Together we were cofounders of the first synagogue village, a partnership between Temple Emanuel and Temple Isaiah for active older adults who want to age in place. Chai Village LA is now in its ninth year.

I became the rabbi emerita of Temple Emanuel in 2016. I consider this stage not retired but rewired, asking the question: Now that there are more years added to our lives, how do we add more life to our years?

What I look forward to now is continuing the conversation about growing older through my new book, Moments that Matter: Marking Transitions in Midlife and Beyond, coauthored with Rabbi Beth Lieberman. And I look forward to the unfolding of my journey, wherever it leads.

Rabbi Laura Geller is Rabbi Emerita of Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills.

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Rabbinic Reflections

Rabbi Joel Soffin Reflects on 50 Years of Blessings, Community, and Social Action

Looking back, it might seem as if my career followed a straight line, from loving Hebrew school (really), giving the 7th grade graduation speech in Hebrew, to becoming the interim “rabbi” in my senior year at Harpur College. But being accepted at Yale in Economics broke that line. That is, until my (uncompleted) PhD thesis brought me to El Salvador, face-to-face with real poverty, and the realization that Jewish values compelled me to care about the needy and the vulnerable and to try to build a Jewish community that would reflect those values in the context of worship, learning, and social action.

I found that community in, of all places, Temple Shalom, in Succasunna, New Jersey, where 244 families were open to such a vision and joined me enthusiastically for twenty-seven years, making it a reality, whether it was ROQ (Pure) Shabbat creative services with our singing congregation, learning opportunities where all interpretations were encouraged, or worldwide Fain award-winning social action. There was the Temple Shalom question: How can we help you? and the Temple Shalom way of doing things: People come before rules. We doubled in size, drawing from twenty-seven communities, for our whole congregation was one enormous caring community that walked the Jewish walk.

We adopted the Vietnamese Lieu family and six Soviet families, giving them everything they needed. We created the International Committee to Rescue the Mendeleev Family and what became the URJ Adult Mitzvah Corps, building homes in post-Hurricane Sandy New Jersey with Israeli partners and in Maine with teenagers. Groups of us went to Zvenigorodka, Ukraine, bringing a Torah and a 180-piece ark to the newly renamed “Temple Shalom.” 

The Million Quarter Project, which provided that many meals for hungry Ethiopian children waiting to come to Israel, led to my becoming the president of the National Coalition on Ethiopian Jewry. 

None of this would have been possible without the hundreds of people who contributed time and money, lifting my spirits when I was down. We took this holy journey together. I was also blessed with so many mentors along the way who saw something special in me and helped to bring it out: Cantor Arthur Yolkoff, z”l; Chuck Kroloff; Professors Eugene Borowitz, z“l; Larry Hoffman; Michael Chernick; and Norm Cohen. I can only hope that I can do nearly as well by my own mentees, rabbinic and lay alike, here, in Israel, and East Africa, and the seven clergy who grew up at Temple Shalom.

I was blessed with many sabbatical “pieces,” which enabled me to volunteer in Bakersfield, California, with Cesar Chavez, z”l, at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism with the indefatigable David Saperstein, and for months at a time in Israel with Sandy and our sons, Jeremy and Aaron (six grandchildren were yet to come).

When I retired in 2006 as Emeritus, I received two wonderful blessings. One came from Elyse Frishman and the Barnert Temple in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, where I was welcomed into a second thriving community, spending sixteen years as Sabbatical and Social Action Rabbi and then Talmud and Torah teacher. 

The other came from a congregant who suggested that we create what became the Jewish Helping Hands Foundation, so I could continue my worldwide social action projects. Over twenty years, with no fundraisers and no overhead, we have raised some 2.5 million dollars to help nearly 100,000 new Rwandan mothers receive the eggs and milk they need to heal, to support dozens of genocide widows, and to create youth centers of dance, computers, and English in Rwanda and Uganda. There is also the newly dedicated Mishkan in Rishon LeZion, a sanctuary for people experiencing homelessness and some twenty other projects in Israel.

As my book, The Mitzvah on Your Forehead, recounts, I have found my calling and tried to fulfill it to the best of my ability. My life continues to be one of blessings given and even more received in return. Nearly every homeless person to whom I give a dollar in Manhattan says, “God bless you.” I respond, “May God bless you, too, for giving me the opportunity to help.”

At 81, I’m still going forward full steam, ever grateful for the life I’ve been so fortunate to lead.

CCAR member Rabbi Joel Soffin is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis at CCAR Convention 2026.

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Rabbinic Reflections

Making a Difference in Israel and Throughout the Jewish World: Rabbi Joel Oseran Reflects on 50 Years a Reform Rabbi

Upon ordination in 1976, I knew two things: I wanted to live in Israel. and I wanted to make a difference in the lives of Jewish people throughout the world. Looking back, I am blessed to have done both and to still be doing both. 

My goal of living in Israel was sealed when I met my wife, Rachelle, from Bulawayo, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) who was working in the NFTY office after graduating from the WUJIS program in Arad. I was working back then at HUC-JIR in Jerusalem after my ordination in 1976. I was sure if I met a woman to marry who was already committed to living in Israel, my goal of making aliyah to Israel would become a reality. It did. 

After a few important years of working in the US as a rabbi in Los Angeles, my next goal was to secure a position back in Israel that would enable me to serve the Jewish people both in Israel and around the world. This came about when I met Rabbi Dick Hirsch, Executive Director of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, at a UAHC biennial in Toronto in 1985, and asked him if I could come work with him at the World Union office in Jerusalem. He told me flat out that he had no budget for a position. I asked him what if I would bring with me funds to cover my position for two years, would he then have a position for me. Anyone who knew Dick Hirsch would know his answer:  “Absolutely,” he said, “you bring the funding, I will create a job for you.” I did and he did. 

The World Union position became secure after WZO funding began the following year. It was my professional home for thirty years and a source of tremendous pride and satisfaction for my rabbinate. During those years I was able to “make a difference” in Israel, the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and throughout the world. I learned a great deal from Dick Hirsch, which helped me build my symbiotic relationship between Israel and the Diaspora. I worked in both, and I came to appreciate the value and importance of both. 

Arriving in Israel with two small boys (my third son was born in Israel in 1989), I quickly came to see that if there was going to be a school setting that would be the right mixture of liberal Judaism and secular studies, I and other like-minded parents would have to establish it. And so we created a new school in Jerusalem, linked to the TALI educational system (Tigbor Limudei Yahadut) which began using rooms in HUC-JIR and Bet Shmuel in Jerusalem and later blossomed in the neighborhood of Bayit V’Gan (imagine that). Back in the late 1980s, that was a big deal. 

Timing is everything in life: I fell into my World Union position just as the Soviet Union was imploding and Jewish life was, once again, a possibility for millions of our Jewish family members who knew nothing about Judaism, but everything about their deep commitment and sense of belonging to the Jewish people. I helped build Jewish communities in the FSU and raise up a generation of rabbis and lay leaders there, all the while feeling that this work was personal as well as professional. My family roots on both my mother’s and father’s side were from Ukraine and Belarus. What an opportunity to contribute to those family members who were less fortunate than I—who lived through the Shoah and were searching for a meaningful doorway into their Jewish identity. Progressive Judaism provided that doorway and I was there to help open it for hundreds upon hundreds of my family still in the “old country.”

I traveled the world with the World Union, helping to establish and support Progressive Jewish congregations throughout the world, but primarily in Latin America and Europe. The last community I helped establish was in Rome, Italy. When I retired from the WUPJ in 2016, I began serving Beth Hillel in Rome on a part-time basis, and ten years later, I continue to be the rabbi for the community. We have purchased a building in a beautiful neighborhood in Rome and will begin renovations later this year. This is a retirement I never imagined, but one which I highly recommend.

My class of 1976 met in Atlanta at the recent NAORRR conference. What an amazing few days to remember who we were back in 1971 in our first year in Jerusalem and then again, fifty years after our ordination. I am grateful for the opportunity my rabbinic ordination afforded me to help make a difference, both in my beloved Israel and throughout the Jewish world.

Rabbi Joel Oseran serves Beth Hillel in Rome and is the VP Emeritus, International Development of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. He is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis at CCAR Convention 2026.

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Rabbinic Reflections

Supporting, Sustaining, and Guiding Jewish Communal Life; Rabbi Jack Luxemburg Reflects on 50 Years as a Reform Rabbi

Looking back over forty years as a congregational rabbi, plus ten as an “active emeritus,” it is clear to me that I was fortunate to be engaged in the Jewish enterprise at a time of great energy, anticipation, creativity, and purpose. Intimations of peace were all about. The work of liberating Soviet and Ethiopian Jews was in high gear. Movements of social justice and community service were making progress. We felt the arc of history bending towards justice and opportunity for all. Our congregations were thriving. Our Movement and its affiliates were opening new perspectives on Jewish life, learning, and spirituality in America, in Israel, and around the world. Our camps and our seminaries were raising up new generations of Jewish leaders and teachers. And we eagerly took part in it all.

It may have been among the best of times, but it also contained the seeds of for some of the most difficult of times. It is hard to recall the heady times of Middle Eastern peace-making in light of the wars, the intifadas, the terrorism, and the destruction wrought on both Israelis and Palestinians—and Americans—since Sadat’s famous visit. The “start-up” nation became the start of arguments. We are excused, if not expelled, from certain tables where pressing matters of social justice are being discussed. Public institutions of culture and learning, which Jews have supported, sustained, and in which we have flourished, feel less welcoming. The political culture of promise has morphed into one of prejudice. Our Movement, its institutions and affiliates struggle to keep pace. And we were part of that, too, even if reluctantly.

It seems to me this is a pattern repeated in our history. In how many times and places did our folk and faith flourish only to flounder when the political, economic or cultural currents shifted?  Sometimes, our people fled to more promising situations. Too many times, however, the option of flight was denied. Those communities suffered greatly, and they are no more. But, despite all that, our people live. Our communities persist. Our Judaism remains vibrant and relevant. It is a miracle too often taken for granted. And, happily, we are part of that, too.

My fifty years in the rabbinate have been fifty years of supporting, sustaining, and guiding Jewish communal life; fifty years of sharing, teaching and, to the best of my ability, modeling the wisdom of our Judaism, the timelessness of Jewish values, and the sensitivities of the Jewish soul. Fifty years of celebrating, consoling, listening, and comforting. Fifty years of so many interactions and episodes, both social and spiritual, they are beyond count. I have come to this: That what our folk and faith derive from the times of plenty (of whatever kind) is what will sustain us through the lean years. It is not about social, political, or economic success. It has always been about communal fortitude, spiritual strength, moral clarity, and prophetic vision, the insistence that tomorrow can be, should be, better than today, and that the vision applies not only to our people, but to all people. Not only on the grand scale, but also in the context of daily interactions and personal relationships. And that our Torah, our traditions, our prayers, the entirety of our Judaism is to inspire us, guide us, and move us towards that ideal.

Embroidered on the corners of my tallit is the teaching of Shammai:

שַׁמַּאי אוֹמֵר, עֲשֵׂה תוֹרָתְךָ קֶבַע. אֱמֹר מְעַט וַעֲשֵׂה הַרְבֵּה, וֶהֱוֵי מְקַבֵּל אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם בְּסֵבֶר פָּנִים יָפוֹת:  

Shammai used to say: Make your [study of the] Torah a fixed practice; speak little, but do much; and receive all men with a pleasant countenance (Pirkei Avot 1:15:2).

This is my watchword. I tried to teach and live my rabbinate with integrity and consistency, which does not preclude creativity or growth. I tried to let my deeds outnumber my words (a losing battle). And I tried to be as open, embracing, and caring a person as I believe Judaism to be.

I thank my teachers, my colleagues, friends, and family, my congregants and students, for the privilege and pleasures of serving my folk and faith as Rav b’Yisrael.

CCAR member Rabbi Jack Luxemburg is Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Beth Ami in Rockville, Maryland. He is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis at CCAR Convention 2026.

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Rabbinic Reflections

A Career Overflowing with Satisfaction and Joy: Rabbi Jan M. Brahms Reflects on 50 Years As a Reform Rabbi

I have been blessed with the privilege of bearing the title “rabbi” for one-half century. That designation alone has resulted in respect, admiration, and opportunity. Doors have been opened for me in congregations, communities, and academics. My goal has always been to act in accordance to that honor. Much of my success and fulfillment could not have been possible without the unlimited support of my wife of fifty-two years, Ann Dee, my children, and in retirement, my grandchildren.

Being a rabbi, I was invited into the lives of my congregants at the most significant religious moments of their lives, birth, b’rit and ‘brit b’not, naming, consecration, bar/bat mitzvah, confirmation, wedding, and the end of life. I have been trusted to advise during times of challenge and confusion along with rejoicing and accomplishment.

Often, past congregants will contact me remarking that I was helpful to them at a significant moment of their lives. Recently a grieving mother came up to me shortly after the untimely death of her twenty-five-year-old son telling me how much he admired me for making a positive influence on his life. I treasure those relationships.

It is with much satisfaction that I have been able to teach Torah within my congregations along with adjunct professorships at colleges and universities.

As president of my rabbinic region, MWARR, I was honored to serve on the Board of the CCAR learning from colleagues. Through the CCAR, I was also able to serve as the chairperson of the Mentoring program to hopefully assist fifth-year rabbinic students at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and into the first two years of their rabbinates. I was entrusted to serve on the NCRCR trying to guide rabbis and congregations in resolving conflicts and bring shalom to all parties.

To my teachers and students, my classmates and colleagues, my congregants and friends, and especially my family I say, “Todah rabbah” for granting me a career filled to overflowing with satisfaction, fulfillment, and joy.

CCAR member Rabbi Jan M. Brahms is the Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Beth Shalom of The Woodlands in The Woodlands, Texas. Throughout his rabbinic career, he also served synagogues in Madison, Wisconsin; Nashville, Tennessee; and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis at CCAR Convention 2026.

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Rabbinic Reflections

Rabbi Neal I. Borovitz’s 50 Years as a Reform Rabbi: Reflections on Torah, Worship, Acts of Lovingkindness, Truth, Justice, and Peace

Having just finished reading the new CCAR Press biography of Rabbi Alexander Schindler, with whom I was blessed to share a bimah on the High Holy Days during my tenure in Brooklyn, New York (1983–1988), I realized again, a thought I shared with my classmates at NAORRR this year: our class was blessed to serve in a golden age of the American Reform Rabbinate.

Two of the initiatives of Alex that Michael Meyer documents in this book, namely, outreach to interfaith couples and their children and the commitment to strengthening and expanding the commitment to Zionism, played a central role in my rabbinate.

Reform outreach initiatives, begun during the early years of my rabbinate, offered me the opportunity to fully welcome Jews into the communities I led. Over the last fifty years I had come to understand that in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, all identifying Jews are Jews by Choice, regardless of their parentage. Welcoming, teaching, and counseling Jewish families from a variety of backgrounds, has brought immense professional satisfaction. The title of Michael Meyer’s biography of Alex Schindler, Above All, We are Jews, a quote I heard from Alex forty years ago, has been a guiding principal of my life ever since.

The centrality of Israel to my Jewish identity preceded my interest in the rabbinate. I grew up in a Conservative synagogue in Cleveland, Ohio led by Rabbi Rudolph Rosenthal, a 1933 HUC-JIR ordainee, who instilled in me a true love of Israel and helped me to spend my junior year of college (1968–69) at Hebrew University. He, along with my Hillel rabbi at Vanderbilt, Rabbi Lou Silberman, both of whom shared  a commitment to the Civil Rights movement in America and a deep responsibility to be advocates for Israel, became models for me of the possibilities that the rabbinate offered me to dedicate my life to the words of Deuteronomy: צדק צדק תרדוף

Born in 1948, when the memories of the yellow star of degradation was still a vivid reality incised upon the hearts and souls of Jews, I have been blessed to stand in pride next to the blue star of Israel’s flag. While for Frank Rosensweig, the Star of David was a symbol of God, Torah, and Israel connected by creation, revelation, and redemption, ever since a Mishnah class in 1968, where I first seriously studied Pirkei Avot, I have had a different interpretations of the Magen David.

In Pirkei Avot 1:2, Shimon HaTzadik teaches that the world stands upon three things: Torah, worship, and acts of lovingkindness. At the end of the chapter, Shimon HaTzadik teaches that the world stands upon three things: truth, justice, and peace.

I believe that these two triads superimposed upon each other, creating the Jewish star, teaches that it is through Torah, worship, and acts of lovingkindness, that we can achieve for ourselves, for our people, Israel, and the world, truth, justice, and peace.

Rabbi Neal Borovitz is Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Avodat Shalom in River Edge, New Jersey. He is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis at CCAR Convention 2025.

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Rabbinic Reflections

The Challenges and Joys of Teaching Our Teenagers: Rabbi Josh Goldstein Reflects on 50 Years as a Reform Rabbi

Marking the fiftieth anniversary of my ordination, it’s a natural impulse to reflect on the most wonderful rabbinic moments I’ve experienced. Tuesday evenings are among my fondest memories.

Each Tuesday at 6:00 p.m., at the mid-sized synagogue I served for more than three decades, sixty to seventy post b’nei mitzvah students would arrive for their weekly two-hour dosage of Jewish learning. In my sections, we would take on some eclectic topics, from Masada to Maimonides to mixed marriage. I always felt that a great deal was at stake each week. I wanted each student to leave feeling some degree of Jewish inspiration. And I desperately tried to avoid the greatest sin of all—being boring.

I had an advantage. I could “talk the talk,” whether bantering about hoops, or movies, or rock music, or being a bit irreverent. I was also drawn to those students who felt like outsiders. So, over pizza dinners, I’d schmooze with everyone, lead Birkat Hamazon, and then engage in topics that were carefully chosen, not only to draw interest, but really to teach and discuss about the remarkable story of our people. We avoided using the word “confirmation” (too assimilated), and we declined teaching comparative religion (we wanted to spend those precious two hours on our own heritage). We never had the resources to take our teenagers to Israel each year, but I constantly talked up the joy of Camp Harlam summers, and soon, a semester or year in Israel.

I made a point of keeping in touch with our students after their high school graduations, and even surveyed them, years later, about the impact of Tuesday evenings on their Jewish identities. Warning them not to “kiss up” to me, I invariably was told: “Those evenings were a wonderful part of my Jewish growth. It was great to have dinner with friends, to be encouraged to share thoughts, and to develop a greater appreciation of my Jewish story.”

These days, in semi-retirement, my challenges are on another level: Sally has dementia, and I’m now a caregiver for my wonderful wife of fifty-three years.  I am supported in many ways, especially by the deep friendships of my colleagues in NAORRR. And I feel bolstered, as well, by the memory of Tuesday evenings with our teenagers. I remember them all—the jocks, the rebels, the conformists. I loved them all. It was profoundly challenging to try to inspire them Jewishly. Sometimes I succeeded. But the challenge was a deeply meaningful part of my life. I miss it more than anything else I ever did as a rabbi.

Josh Goldstein is Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Sha’arey Shalom, in Springfield, New Jersey, and founding rabbi of the Chai Center for Jewish Life in Watchung, New Jersey. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis when we come together at CCAR Convention 2025.

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Rabbinic Reflections

Rabbi Paul Golomb’s 50 Years as a Reform Rabbi: Establishing a Camp, Editing the ‘Reform Jewish Quarterly’ and Much More

There is an instructive comment in the Talmud that one should not profit materially from imparting Torah. Torah was given freely by the Eternal, and therefore one cannot charge for what was given at no cost. Hence, we rabbis cannot be paid to be teachers of Torah! If that is the case, then what are rabbis paid for?

In my forty years as an active rabbi, I found out. I had the opportunity to work in small, midsized, and large congregations, direct Hillel Foundations and a region of the URJ, and teach a number of university courses. My favorite story regarding how a rabbi earns a living arose when I spent a morning at the Hillel House at the University of Buffalo fixing a stubborn leak in one of the bathroom sinks. As I went outside to get some lunch, I bumped into a professor I knew who was walking his dog. We chatted a bit, then the professor commented, “I always have wanted to know just what a rabbi does.” At that point, all I could think of was some light plumbing.

There are numerous activities and events of those years for which I am proud—and quite a number I regret. Focusing on the positive, let me mention two particular highlights: 

As the URJ regional director in Canada in the late 1990s, I had a significant role in establishing Camp George in Ontario, culminating an effort that had been in place for over a decade. The need for a Reform Movement camp in Canada was reflected by having all its beds filled in that first summer of 1999. Further, it posted a first-year operating budget in the black. I had been a camper, counselor, and faculty member at Union camps since 1959. Almost nothing in all those experiences compare to getting a successful camp off the ground.

From 2013 to 2018, I had the honor of being the editor-in-chief of the Reform Jewish Quarterly. With the withdrawal to digital-only format or outright disappearance of many publications, the RJQ remains a critical outlet for modern liberal Jewish scholarship and expression. I am delighted to have had a part in producing and promoting so many thoughtful essays, poems, and reviews.

My fifty years as a rabbi (plus four as student at HUC-JIR) would have been greatly diminished without the love and care of my wife, Debbie. She has been my severest critic and my steadfast support. Any success I have had is at least in part due to her. Although she had a legal career as a litigator and mediator, she served—as do most rabbi spouses—as an unpaid employee of the congregation; a task that can be as socially and emotionally demanding as any profession. As I achieve honorary status in the CCAR, I extend all my honor and love to Deborah Grand Golomb.

 Rabbi Paul Golomb is senior scholar at Vassar Temple in Poughkeepsie, New York and is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis when we come together at CCAR Convention 2025.

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Rabbinic Reflections

Rabbi Norman Roman on 50 Years of Fulfillment and Meaning as a Reform Rabbi

Spring of 2025—50 years since ordination in Cincinnati (and further memories of five previous years of HUC-JIR with student pulpits, and two and a half years of serving/training as “pre-rabbinic intern” at my home congregation in Cleveland). It has been an entire lifetime of identifying and finding fulfillment as a rabbi.

When asked why this was my chosen lifestyle, I inevitably respond that I never seriously considered doing anything else; teaching, working with youth, supporting those in need, being on the stage, helping the Jewish people, repairing the world, and wrestling with God. I knew that I could do all of them—praying that I would be successful in at least some of them—in the role known as rav. Gratefully, my mentors and family have all lovingly been with me on my journey.

I take great pride in knowing that I have had a positive influence on many people in the communities which I have served. I am humbled that many have overlooked or forgiven my faults and mistakes. I look back with fondness and approval at the number of my former students and campers who have chosen to devote their lives to Jewish professional life. B’kitzur, I have immense satisfaction and contentment in what I have accomplished. Ani samei-ach b’chelki.

From the pulpit, I have tried to instruct and interpret Torah. In the university classroom, I have tried to represent our tradition and history in such a way as to further interreligious respect and understanding; and (in the happiest experiences I have shared) working with NFTY teens in their leadership development, I have tried to be a role model and guide, while at the same time, relishing in the ruach that recharged my soul’s batteries.

What do I look forward to? Im yir’tzeh HaShem, I will continue to be a “part-time” rabbi to my community of seniors and retirees. And hopefully, being blessed with the strength, health, wisdom and love to be a better husband, father, father-in-law, and zayde.

Rabbi Norman Roman is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. He is Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Kol Ami in West Bloomfield, Michigan and also serves Beth Shalom Temple Center in Green Valley, Arizona. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis when we come together at CCAR Convention 2025.

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Rabbinic Reflections

A Career of Great Depth and Dimension: Rabbi Benjamin Lefkowitz Reflects on 50 Years as a Reform Rabbi

As I look back on fifty years, I reflect on how my life has gone in two different directions, frequently simultaneously—pulpit and college teaching. As I have made my way through these years, I have kept in mind the advice of two treasured colleagues and teachers, now sadly both in the yeshivah shel maalah. One was to remember the beloved Jacob Rudin’s advice to me and my classmates to always find time and a way to study. The other, which at times could be understood as humor and at others in a far more serious vein, was our cherished Lenny Kravitz’ dictum, “If you don’t like Jews, don’t go into this business.”

There is the title of a book I will never write:  B’nai Mitzvah and Other Natural Disasters: My Life Throwing the Knuckleball from the Bimah. We find ourselves in pursuit of teaching and touching lives, with some great successes and yet other occasions where things don’t go as planned or hoped, or events when the saving grace was having a sense of humor and seeing it in the most unanticipated situations, like a Kol Nidrei where a senior colleague failed to check with the organist about the length of Bruch’s “Kol Nidrei”rhapsody, or a Kol Nidrei where a 10-year old burst into the sanctuary to proclaim how the home baseball team had been saved by a dramatic home run. 

We all know that there are times when uneasy lies the head that wears the crown—or the kippah and tallit. There are times when I found myself feeling as if I was in an episode of a series that could have been called Tales of the Unexpected—situations our education never taught us about or that we often felt would not happen to us. But those times of challenge were more than compensated for by the times of knowing that I had made a difference in someone’s life, sometimes in very unexpected ways. Three examples in brief: finding a way to reunite a guilt-ridden teenager with her parents; learning that a simple statement of reassurance to a college student had made all the difference to her in her studies; and when a simple sermon about the significance of nerot Shabbat led a woman to start lighting them again after many years of not having done so. The rewards remain so fulfilling—touching lives, and the relationships that now continue long after leaving the pulpit.

Nine years ago I retired from the pulpit and focused on college teaching—ironically, what I thought my goal would be when I entered college. At the time, several people asked me if I was still going to be a rabbi. My response was a reference to the exclamation by a Marine general in Korea when the Chinese came pouring in and the Marines had to move south. A reporter asked the general how it felt to be a Marine and retreating. Replied the general, “Retreat? Hell, we’re attacking in a new direction!” In other words, I was just “rabbi-ing” in a different direction, and on campus I frequently found myself both teacher and counselor.

All told, these years have been quite a ride, and I am eternally grateful for the friendship of colleagues and the love and support of my wife, Barbara, and our children, Amy and Daniel and their families, who have been on the ride with me. Let me close with some excerpts from Tennyson’s “Ulysses” (with fond thoughts for classmates sadly gone, along with a heartfelt d’rishat shalom and y’yishar kochachem to those still here):

“I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone…
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move….
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts…strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Rabbi Benjamin Lefkowitz is celebrating 50 years as a Reform rabbi. We look forward to celebrating him and all of the CCAR’s 50-year rabbis when we come together at CCAR Convention 2025.