New Jersey Jewish News
MIddlesex County Feature
Historic shul pins its future on young rabbi
When Melinda Zalma takes over May 19 as rabbi at Temple Beth Mordecai in Perth Amboy, she will be younger than virtually all its members.
Nonetheless, the leaders of the more than century-old Conservative synagogue expect that hiring the 33-year-old will be the first step in changing that demographic.
“She will be able to rebuild our synagogue,” said its president, Raoul Rabiner. “We had 14 applicants, but she had such a dynamic personality, she was head and shoulders above everyone else we spoke to. This young lady is as charming as they make them, very friendly and personable. That is what you need. She just dominated the interview process.”
Adding to Zalma’s appeal was her readiness to chant Torah, her extensive background in Judaic studies, and the Metuchen native’s strong ties to the area.
The synagogue committee interviewed about half the 14 applicants. “We had four men tell us they could not [chant] from the Torah, said Rabiner. “That is not acceptable in our congregation. But she is capable of reading Torah, so she went to the top of the list.”
Zalma said she has been impressed with the congregation, which has just over 100 member families, and its determination to revitalize itself despite the city’s diminished Jewish population. She succeeds Beth Mordecai’s longtime rabbi, Hillel Rudavsky, who died in January.
“One of the things that attracted me to Perth Amboy was this historic congregation, which is so committed,” said Zalma, a graduate of Metuchen High School who attended religious school and became bat mitzva at Neve Shalom in Metuchen. “One of the things that really impressed me was that here is an aging community with people 30 to 40 years my senior who grew up in an age where women didn’t participate in formal religion. And yet here they were so open and welcoming to a woman rabbi. Everyone I’ve met so far has been so supportive of whatever efforts I will do on behalf of the congregation. I want to grow and enrich this congregation and create a sense of community.”
Zalma took a somewhat circuitous route to the rabbinate. Although always interested in Judaism, it wasn’t until college that the idea of entering the rabbinate began to crystallize. A graduate of Northwestern University, where she majored in electrical engineering and had a concentration in Jewish studies, Zalma began rethinking her very technical career choice.
“Although I enjoyed my studies in electrical engineering, I was removed from working with people,” she said. “I wanted to work with the community and make a difference in people’s lives. That — combined with being attracted to working with the Jewish community — made this all fit together very well and figured into my decision to become a rabbi. I know some of my Christian colleagues talk about having a calling. Well, that’s what it felt like for me….”
When she was in religious school, she recalled, “although no one said, ‘Oh my gosh, this girl is going to be a rabbi,’ I was one of the few girls who wore a tallit, which started at my bat mitzva in 1986.”
While pondering her decision on whether to enter the rabbinate, she turned to her own rabbi, Neve Shalom’s Gerald Zelizer, for advice.
“I encouraged her to become a rabbi so I’m very proud,” said Zelizer. “Her parents [Ed and Susan Levinson] have been active members of my synagogue since she was an infant. She has never wavered in her interest and was always very bright in a dignified way. She was very quiet and never expressed a keen interest in becoming a rabbi. She went to Northwestern University, where she excelled as a student, and began to inquire about the requirements of becoming a rabbi and became more and more observant. As part of that, she came and saw me again and again. It was a deliberate process that reflected very well on her since it was very well thought through.”
Zelizer noted he officiated at both Zalma’s bat mitzva service and again seven or eight years ago at her marriage to Adam, a Long Island native.
“It was wonderful — a kind of completion of her life cycle for me,” said Zelizer. “I am very honored and excited I was consulted in her career process. She is a product of our religious school, went to [the Conservative movement’s] Camp Ramah for years. Her parents attend our Sabbath and holiday services regularly. Any rabbi during the course of his or her career would like to produce other rabbis and cantors from his congregation to serve the Jewish community….
“The fact that here is a rabbi from our congregation and that she is serving in a neighboring community makes it a double honor for me.”
Zalma said she plans to model her interaction with her Beth Mordecai congregants on Zelizer’s participatory style. “He now considers me a colleague, which I treasure,” she said.
A 2003 graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary in Manhattan, Zalma also holds a master’s degree in midrash, rabbinic commentary, from JTS. She is currently completing a program in hospital chaplaincy at Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan and previously worked at the National Jewish Outreach Institute in Manhattan.
Sense of community
All those experiences and her background should serve Zalma well in her new position and in bringing younger Jews back to Beth Mordecai, according to Rabiner.
“First of all, there are a lot of unaffiliated Jews in the area…,” he explained. “We are able to sit 600 in our sanctuary so we’ve got plenty of room to expand and we have modest membership fees. We charge only $261 for a single and $461 for a family. We always get at least 30 to 35 people on Friday nights and always have a minyan Saturday. It’s really a remarkable congregation that not too long ago was on its last legs with a caretaker rabbi and now is coming back. She is going to help us rebuild.”
Zalma acknowledged it would be a “slow start” but she does have plans for the synagogue.
“Because of my master’s in midrash, one of the adult education classes I want to hold will be learning how the rabbis see things and then they can learn how to create their own midrash,” she said. “I want to start with adult education, maybe a lunch-and-learn after Shabbat services. It will bring members together and foster that sense of community. They really have such a vibrant core so that will be my first task.
“My last full-time job at the Jewish Outreach Institute gave me a lot of tools for reaching out to the community, which I’ll certainly be drawing on.”
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