'rituality

Lasting
ression

Rabbi Hal Greenwald leaves JCCfor Califirnia school post.

Rabbi Hal
Greenwald

SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN

StaffWriter

fter a brief, but indelible stay
in the Detroit Jewish com-
munity, Rabbi Hal
reenwald is leaving to
teach in California.
Rabbi Greenwald has served for the
past two years as director of Jewish
education at the Jewish Community
Center of Metropolitan Detroit, where
he was involved in programs to bring
Jewish learning to staff and patrons.
His last day was June 14.
Now, the rabbi is returning to the
Los Angeles area, where he received his
ordination at Ziegler School of
Rabbinic Studies in 2000. His new
position is rabbi-in-residence at
Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School
in Northridge, Calif.
"The decision to leave was a very
difficult one," Rabbi Greenwald says.
"I felt truly embraced by the JCC and
the Detroit community."
Metro Detroiters he worked with
also felt that embrace. "We are very
sad that he is leaving," says Margo
Weitzer, assistant executive director of
the JCC. "He made an array of posi-
tive impacts on both the JCC and the
community."
Within the JCC, the rabbi says,
"The mandate was to help infuse
everything we do — from basketball
leagues and the health club to Book

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2002

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Fair and SAJE [Seminars for
Adult Jewish Enrichment] —
with an even greater sense of
Jewish passion."
He enhanced staff develop-
ment in Jewish education through the
Shorashim program, where Jewish
learning was made an automatic com-
ponent in staff training.
"We learned together at the depart-
mental level during monthly lunch-
and-learns led by local rabbis and edu-
cators and at off-site training days,"
Rabbi Greenwald says. "Every weekly
management-team meeting began with
20 minutes of Jewish learning, as we
looked at the business of the JCC
through the prism of Torah."
He adds, "Sharon Hart, president of
the JCC, brought text study to the
highest levels of our lay leadership
through dinner-and-learns prior to
board meetings and chavrutah [one-
on-one religious] study at mentor
training programs."
The rabbi also helped launch the
Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Judaic
Enrichment Center, the interactive
Jewish learning center that comprises
the Ford Motor Company Center for
Exploration and Discovery and the
David B. Hermelin ORT Resource
Center in the West Bloomfield JCC.
"I worked shoulder-to-shoulder
with some of our community's most
dedicated and talented lay leaders and
staff on a project I think is going to be
unbelievably exciting," Rabbi
Greenwald says. "The person who will
fill this position will also be the direc-
tor of the Weinberg Judaic Enrichment
Center, which will place him or her at

the center of one of the most exciting
adventures in Jewish education anyone
has seen in a long time."

Outside The Center

"The rabbi took his SAJE class to the
Birmingham-Bloomfield Yoga Center,"
says Nancy Kaplan, community out-
reach coordinator of Eilu Eilu, the
adult Jewish learning program of the
Conservative movement, where the
rabbi was a teacher and member of the
steering committee.
"That just epitomized the imagina-
tion he brought to his whole way of
thinking. He has a gift to bring Torah
learning to the. learner."
Rabbi Greenwald was instrumental
in leading the new beit midrash format
of Eilu v' Eilu, where pairs of learners
study text, in teacher-facilitated classes.
. "The pre-holiday "Elul Beit-
Midrash" he ran last August and
September brought in people who
never would have sat down and stud-
ied text, but came because of him,"
Kaplan says.
Rabbi Greenwald also led "The Best
Jewish Book You're Probably Not
Reading" in a Birmingham bookstore,
designed to broaden horizons through
Jewish books.
"He has a beautiful soul, and an
eclectic following from so many places
in the community," Kaplan says. "He
is warm, friendly and delightful and
makes people happy to study Jewish
topics with him. They gravitate to
him."
While many Detroiters will miss the
rabbi, on the other side of the country,
staff and students of the 30-year-old

Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School
are eagerly awaiting Rabbi Greenwald's
July 1 arrival.
"We are thrilled to have him," says
Dr. Roxie Esterle, middle school prin-
cipal of the independent 450-student
school, which integrates secular and
Judaic education. "He comes with the
most enthusiastic recommendations
and we were tremendously impressed
with his commitment to Judaism."
Rabbi Greenwald will work mostly
within the middle school, but will be
involved with the entire transitional
kindergarten through eighth-grade stu-
dent body.
"The position is a vital role in our
school," Dr. Esterle says. "It involves
teaching, services and some counseling.
He will also be involved with the
extensive community service program
in our school."
A search is under way at the JCC
for a new director of Jewish education.
"It's been wonderful having Rabbi
Greenwald here and his shoes will be
difficult to fill," Weirzer says. "But
find someone
we're confident
qualified with a high degree of Jewish
knowledge."
Rabbi Greenwald says: "The next
person in this position will be walking
into a rich learning infrastructure, with
the opportunity to bring more infor-
mal adult education into the lives of
families and individuals."
Although his move will take him
far, he says, "I'll be carrying with me
the Torah I learned from my teachers
in Detroit. I hope. to remain in touch
with the people and institutions here
that gave me so much." O