Bracha

Bunch!

Brett Mountain

The

John Hardwick

Brett Mountain

Brett Mountain

metro » o n the cover

In a New Year windfall,
six congregations welcome
rabbis new to their pulpits.

Brett Mountain

Brett Mountain

Barbara Lewis | Contributing Writer

From top: Rabbis Kantor, Gutmann and Dahlen.

D

etroit’s Jewish com-
munity has extra cause
to celebrate this High
Holiday season: the arrival of six
new congregational rabbis.
Three are serving
Conservative synagogues
— Rabbi Yonatan Dahlen at
Congregation Shaarey Zedek
in Southfield, Rabbi Shalom
Kantor at Congregation B’nai
Moshe in West Bloomfield
and Rabbi Ariana Silverman
at the Isaac Agree Downtown
Synagogue in Detroit.
Two are at Reform temples
— Rabbi Megan Brudney at
Temple Beth El in Bloomfield
Township and Rabbi Brent
Gutmann at Temple Kol Ami in
West Bloomfield.
Rabbi Aura Ahuvia is the new
spiritual leader of the Reform/
Renewal Congregation Shir
Tikvah in Troy.

In addition, the Reform
Temple Beth Emeth in Ann
Arbor recently welcomed Rabbi
Josh Whinston (see sidebar).
Rabbis Ahuvia, Gutmann,
Kantor and Silverman are serv-
ing as their congregations’
only rabbi. Silverman is the
Downtown Synagogue’s first
rabbi since the late Rabbi Noah
Gamze retired in 2001. Dahlen
joins Rabbi Aaron Starr at
Shaarey Zedek, and Brudney
will be the assistant to Temple
Beth El’s senior rabbi, Mark
Miller.
Brudney and Dahlen are fresh
out of rabbinical school. While
the others have congregational
experience, most are fairly
young. Ahuvia, who has adult
children, is the most seasoned
pro among them.
The turnover in pulpit posi-
tions leaves Detroit with few

From top: Rabbis Brudney, Silverman and Ahuvia.

truly “senior” non-emeritus
rabbis. Herbert Yoskowitz, 75,
at Adat Shalom Synagogue and
Harold Loss, 71, at Temple Israel
are probably the area’s oldest
full-time pulpit rabbis.
Some rabbis are retir-
ing earlier, including Arnold
Sleutelberg, who was only 57
when he became rabbi emeri-
tus at Shir Shalom at the end
of June. Others altered career
paths, including Elliot Pachter,
who moved from the pulpit
at B’nai Moshe to a full-time
administrative position at the
Frankel Jewish Academy in West
Bloomfield.
“I do not know of a trend in
early retirements from the rab-
binate, but it is not unusual for
those in the rabbinate to shift
careers, as I did, from pulpit to
academia,” said Rabbi Daniel
Nevins, who left Adat Shalom

Synagogue in 2008 to become
the dean of the rabbinical
school at the Jewish Theological
Seminary in New York.

DIFFERENT PATHWAYS
Kol Ami’s Gutmann traveled
the farthest to come to Detroit.
Although he grew up in Dayton,
Ohio, he spent the past three
years in New Zealand.
“My home congregation
was Beth Shalom Progressive
Congregation in Auckland,” he
said. “We had approximately
220 households. Because I was
the only non-Orthodox rabbi
in the country, I occasionally
visited four other congregations
around the country, led services
for them and consulted with
their leadership.”
New Zealand has only about
7,000 Jews among its 4 million
inhabitants, he said. Most have

roots in South Africa, Europe,
Israel or Canada.
He said he and his wife, Jill,
saw working there as a wonder-
ful opportunity for themselves
and their daughters, but, after
three years, they were ready to
return to the United States.
Silverman, on the other
hand, didn’t have to travel at
all to take up her new position.
She has been living in Detroit’s
Woodbridge neighborhood since
moving to the area six years ago
with her husband, Justin Long,
who teaches law at Wayne State
University.
A graduate of the Hebrew
Union College-Jewish Institute
of Religion, Silverman has been
assistant rabbi at Temple Kol
Ami, the rabbi of the Grosse
Pointe Jewish Council and the
rabbi of Temple Beth Israel
in Jackson. She will serve the

continued on page 12

10 September 8 • 2016