AUGUST 12 • 2021 | 23

video games. In 2018, at the 
age of 15, he was gaming 
at a professional level and 
making money in Fortnite 
tournaments and on Twitch, 
a video game livestreaming 
service. 
Because of a chronic 
inflammatory disease called 
eosinophilic esophagitis, 
Pandolfi attended school 
online. The condition made 
it hard for him to sit in class 
on some days. The condition 
causes an array of stomach 
issues, including severe pain, 
the inability to swallow food 
and vomiting. His symptoms 
have since improved, but one 
of the things he hopes to do 
if his career takes off is use 
modeling to bring awareness 
and funding to help combat 
the disease. 
“
Although I’m doing 
better and able to function 
normally, there are a lot of 
people who aren’t,
” he said.
Pandolfi likes to skateboard 
and travel. While he was in 
Venice, he encountered a 
group of Orthodox Jews. He 
approached them and said, 
“Shalom. I’m a Jew from 
America; how’s it going? I 
didn’t really know what else 
to say, other than that.
”
His other interests include 
spending time with family 
and friends. Pandolfi said he 
appreciates the time he has to 
be with the people he loves 
because he doesn’t know how 
often he will be traveling. 
Plus, a move to New York 
will eventually be necessary 
for a modeling career. 
“He’s my favorite person 
to hang out with,” said his 
mom. “He’s confident and 
comfortable with who he 
is but not cocky. I’m proud 
of his attitude and the way 
he’s handling everything by 
staying down to earth.
” 

T

he Birmingham 
Temple has replaced 
its name with a more 
accurate description. Its new 
name: the Congregation for 
Humanistic Judaism of Metro 
Detroit. 
The impetus for the change 
came from the congregation’s 
outreach project. Analyzing 
factors relevant to recruit-
ment, committee members 
noted that the inherited 
name did not succeed in 
“telling our story.” In an offi-
cial statement, the congre-
gation leadership observed 
that “Humanistic Judaism is 
not well understood, and our 
name was doing little to even 
prompt questions or curiosity 
about it!” 
Rabbi Jeffrey Falick felt 
that personally: “When I was 
out in the community, intro-
ducing myself as the rabbi 
of the Birmingham Temple 
meant that I never even had 
the opportunity to state the 
most important thing about 
us, that we’re a community of 
Humanistic Jews.” 
He adds, “I have already 
noticed that when I say I’m 
from the Congregation for 
Humanistic Judaism, I get 
more questions about what 
that means.”
Some leaders also objected 
that the old name did not 
come close to meeting the 
congregation’s ideology: That 
we “say what we mean.” 
“We haven’t been in 
Birmingham for close to 50 
years,” Rabbi Falick added. 
In a process taking more 

than a year, moving from the 
outreach project to the board 
to the entire congregation, 
the congregation sought a 
new, more expressive name 
for itself. The most widely 
accepted of the 27 sugges-
tions included the words 
“Humanistic Judaism.” 
In 1963, Rabbi Sherwin 
Wine with eight like-mind-
ed families founded the 
Birmingham Temple as the 
first Humanistic Jewish con-
gregation in 1963, introduc-
ing a number of significant 
changes in breaking from the 
Reform Movement, such as 
dropping mentions of God 
in the liturgy and removing 
the Torah from the front of 
the sanctuary to a space in 
the library. The non-theis-
tic movement emphasizes 
human beings as the sources 
of values. 

Rabbi Falick explains, “The 
original name was really 
a legacy of a short stay in 
Birmingham, some of which 
did not go all that well. For 
example, there was that 
time when the Birmingham 
Masonic Temple received so 
many complaints about our 
non-theistic celebrations that 
they actually evicted us! In 
any case, the original name 
never underwent any kind 
of process. It was simply an 
inheritance.

“Naming the movement, 
on the other hand, was the 
result of a real process back 
in the 1960s,” Rabbi Falick 
said. “After considering 
possibilities like ‘Rational 
Judaism’ or ‘Naturalistic 
Judaism,’ they landed on 
Humanistic, a positive and 
upbeat way to describe us 
and draw interest. 
“Given the attachment to 
our movement and its name, 
it just seemed right that it 
should become prominent 
in our new congregational 
name. Our members and 
leaders have always stood 
ready to share with any-
one interested just what 
Humanistic Judaism is all 
about. 
“Now they don’t have to 
waste the time explaining 
what Birmingham has to 
do with anything. They can 
get right to the point about 
our innovative approach to 
Judaism.” 

The Birmingham Temple is now the Congregation 
for Humanistic Judaism of Metro Detroit.

A New Name

LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Rabbi 
Jeffrey 
Falick

