Two Reform synagogues name successors to retiring rabbis

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer
12.29.05

With their long-time rabbis planning to retire at the end of June, two local Reform synagogues have announced successors. Rabbi David C. Levy will succeed Rabbi Joel Soffin at Temple Shalom in Succasunna, and Rabbi Laurence Groffman will follow Rabbi Norman Patz as religious leader of Temple Sholom of West Essex in Cedar Grove. Both will assume their new pulpits on July 1.

Both rabbis hold undergraduate degrees from Brandeis University, and both have served Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills.

Groffman, 39, currently B’nai Jeshurun’s senior rabbi, has served that congregation since 1990, when he was still a rabbinical student. He accepted the senior rabbi position when Rabbi Barry Greene retired in 2003, becoming the congregation’s youngest senior rabbi.

Levy, 44, now rabbi at Congregation Kol Haverim in Glastonbury, Conn., served as both assistant rabbi and rabbi at B’nai Jeshurun from 1988 through 1993. He has been at Kol Haverim since 1997 and served as religious leader of B’nai El Congregation in St. Louis in between.

Levy: ‘My first choice’

Levy, ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s Cincinnati campus in 1988, has promoted programming in social justice. He and Temple Shalom leaders said that makes him a good fit for the congregation, known for its social action projects, and that they felt the connection from their first interaction.

“We were so impressed by him, we made him an offer on the spot — contingent upon the congregation meeting him — so he wouldn’t go elsewhere,” said Marcia Geltman, who served as cochair of Temple Shalom’s search committee.

She needn’t have worried. After spending a day with the congregation, Levy recalled, “As I got in my car and drove away, I got on the phone to my wife and said, ‘This feels like it. It’s going to be my first choice.’ In my heart, I knew this is the place I was meant to be.”

Geltman added, “When he spoke to us, he used the words we use — he talked our talk.” She related a story he told them about the week he moved into his first pulpit community in Missouri. “That weekend there was a flood in the town. He called the Red Cross and told them he’s the rabbi of the local congregation and what can he do? The next morning he had 40 congregants with him helping out. That’s what we do. We say: What can we do to help?”

Levy is also looking forward to returning to New Jersey, which, he said, “feels like home” to him and to his family.

Levy is a founder of the Hartford Jewish Coalition for Literacy, affiliated with the National Jewish Coalition for Literacy, an organization founded by Leonard Fein and piloted in Boston in 1997. The program in Hartford now involves 250 tutors working with 300 children in at-risk schools around the area, and he begins a term as chair of the NJCL this month. He also serves on the boards of the National Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and the Greater Hartford Jewish Federation.

In addition to spearheading social justice projects, Levy said he enjoys inspiring others to create their own projects. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, in addition to the official synagogue efforts to get two truckloads of supplies to the affected areas, a congregant started the Katrina Doll project, through which homemade dolls are sent to the region’s children. The project is based in the synagogue. “When you get involved in social justice work, one thing that comes along with it is that you are able to inspire others,” Levy said.

Drawn to Temple Shalom “by what it is today,” he said he is looking forward to building upon its successes. “I’d love to bring my literacy project to the congregation, and I love what they are doing to support the Ethiopian Jewish community,” he said, referring to the temple’s work on the Million Quarter Project and Shalom Ethiopia, both raising money on behalf of the Jews remaining in Ethiopia. “I’d love to see us reach out to the Ethiopian community in Israel. They have specific needs as they become part of Israeli society…. I want to partner with the congregation to find new ways of outreach and to touch the world and make it a better place.”

Levy’s mother, herself a supporter of the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry, sent her son a tallit crafted by Jews in Ethiopia. “I look forward to putting that tallit on in the midst of a community that really understands what that tallit means,” he said.

Levy said his new congregation represents the fulfillment of his rabbinical school dreams. After accepting the position, he was reminded by some colleagues of the description he had offered years before, as a rabbinical student, of his ideal congregation. “I told them I wanted a congregation of 500-600 families that was dedicated to social justice, with a love of tradition, a place where I could do a lot of teaching and Jewish education. They told me, ‘You’ve found it.’”

Levy has two children, 13, and 10. His wife, Julie, is a special education reading tutor.

Soffin is retiring at the end of June after serving the congregation for 27 years.

Groffman: ‘Sense of family’

When Groffman announced his resignation as B’nai Jeshurun’s senior rabbi last June, he told NJ Jewish News, “It just felt like it was time to try something new.” Asked to describe the congregation he was looking for, he said, “I’m looking for the right shiduch, and I’ll know it when I see it.”

Having found Temple Sholom of West Essex, just a few miles away, he now said that a lot of what went into his decision was “intuition” and “a gut feeling that it just feels right.” He added, “Temple Sholom is a really warm, welcoming, intimate community. That’s very appealing.”

He is also looking forward to being part of a smaller, younger congregation, which, he said, offers “a very pronounced sense of family.” While B’nai Jeshurun has 157 years of history and over 1,000 members, Temple Sholom is just 50 years old with 400 members. Temple Sholom also embraces more traditional Jewish practices, while many at B’nai Jeshurun identify with the less ritually traditional, classical Reform Judaism.

The congregation selected Groffman for “his warmth, his true sense of the rabbinate as a calling for him, his approachability, and his intellect,” said Andrew Mitchell, chair of the search committee.

As with Levy and Temple Shalom, there was an immediate connection between Groffman and his new congregation. “After the phone interview, we were exuberant,” said Mitchell. They appreciated the soul-searching Groffman did in arriving at his decision to leave B’nai Jeshurun, Mitchell said, and he and other congregants think it will enhance the transition to a new religious leader. “He knows what he wants from his rabbinate. That will make the transition easier. He’s done a lot of introspection, and has enough experience to know what he’s looking for,” said Mitchell.

Groffman received ordination from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1993. He has taken a deep interest in interfaith issues, something he plans to continue in Cedar Grove. But his first job at Temple Sholom will be “to learn the congregation, meet the people, and get into the rhythm of the congregation. From there, I’ll have a better idea of what I want to accomplish.” Still, he said, he has already identified an early priority: “drawing unaffiliated people into the congregation.”

President of the New Jersey-West Hudson Valley Association of Reform Rabbis, Groffman is a national board member of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and a member of the CHAI advisory committee for the Health Care Foundation of New Jersey.

Groffman and his wife, Melissa, have two children, 11 months, and 22 months.

B’nai Jeshurun has hired Rabbi Matthew Gewirtz, currently senior associate rabbi at Congregation Rodeph Sholom in Manhattan, to succeed Groffman as its seventh senior rabbi.

Patz will retire from Temple Sholom in June after serving the congregation for more than 35 years.