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