Community

Spirituality

Reform movement
school on the
West Coast is
helping to ease a
rabbi shortage.

And

Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman

ANDY ALTMAN-OHR

Jewish Bulletin of Northern California

San Francisco
an a graduating class of 10 to
15 rabbis in Los Angeles mark
the dawning of a new day for
Reform Judaism on the West
Coast?
A leader of the Reform movement
thinks so.
Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman; presi-
dent of the oldest Jewish college in the
country, can hardly wait for spring
2002, when the first group of rabbis will
be ordained at the Los Angeles campus
of Hebrew Union College-Jewish
Institute of Religion.
The graduating class will create a
pool of rabbis — some of whom will
take pulpits in the Bay Area — and will
help position California as an academic
center for Jewish life, Rabbi
Zimmerman said. "This is going to be a
major step for Reform Judaism on the
West Gast and in the Bay Area."
In a phone interview from his office
in Cincinnati, Rabbi Zimmerman said
Reform Judaism isn't altogether sure
how to attract pebple to its synagogues
and is trying desperately to sustain a
community that continues to erode.
Also, it is plagued by a national
shortage of rabbis, cantors and educa-
tors. The shortage began to develop
seven or eight years ago when HUC-JIR
cut class sizes following a five-year peri-
od that produced 250 to 300 Reform
rabbis.

C

"There was a feeling that the congre-
gations couldn't absorb all of that,"
Rabbi Zimmerman said. "There were
people being ordained who couldn't get
jobs."
But the cycle shifted. In the second
half of the 1990s, about 10 new Reform
congregations sprang up every year,
boosting the total to nearly 900.
"For the first time in generations, all
of this is coming together at the same
time — all of the new jobs out there
and a decline in applications," Rabbi
Zimmerman said. "We're talking a
major crisis."
Other factors included people wanti-
ng to cash in on the hot economy or
not wanting to spend five years studying
to become a rabbi. Also, Rabbi
Zimmerman said, "Who wants to go
into a job today where every minute of
the day you're on call? The burnout has
been extraordinary."
Some rabbis today refuse to take
large congregations or work full time, he
said. Others.are opting to become edu-
cators, chaplains or communal service
workers rather than pulpit rabbis.
"Three-fourths of our graduates are
taking pulpits, and that's not taking care
of all the new jobs that are on the
scene," he said.
And what do rabbi-less congregations
tell Rabbi Zimmerman? "They scream a
lot and get mad at us and get mad at
the school," he said. "Every unfilled
rabbi slot represents hundreds of lives
that are not being touched."

ORDAIN on page 75 .

Active.

Learnin

Religious school students sing,
dance and act their way
through study of Passover.

ith the clergy in
holiday costumes
and the parents par-
ticipating with their
kids, students of the Beth Shalom
Religious School learned about
the holiday of Passover in a
multi-media way.
On April 9, Shoshana Ben-
Ozer, the school's principal led
the first- through third-graders in
readings, songs, plays and dances.
The students entered and exited
the sanctuary through the "Red
Sea," a blue crepe paper creation,
held by parents and parted at the
direction of Moses, aka Cantor
Samuel Greenbaum.
On April 16, the fourth-
through seventh-grades presented
creative explanations of the parts

of the seder to classmates. A
Passover discussion was led by a
second Moses, in the form of
Rabbi David Nelson.
During both programs, the
groups participated in a model
seder, complete with samples of
the seder plate foods.
Brian Wolf, a member of the
synagogue's school board as well
as parent of Beth Shalom students
Hilary, 11, and Alana, 6,
describes the programs. He
reflects, "If this is an indication
of what our future will be like
then we could be sure that
Judaism will continue to flour-
ish." ❑

— Shelli Liebman Dorfman,
staff writer

Julianne Resnick, 6; Gabriella Ring, 6 and Alana Wolf 6, all of Oak Park,
join those watching the Passover performance.

