DECEMBER 1 • 2022 | 17

congregant and member of the 
community for over 30 years. 
“It’s nice to see. We’re holding 
steady.
”
Consisting of about 30 
families, TBS serves all com-
ers, ranging from the secular 
humanists to “those who 
would probably identify in the larger com-
munity as Conservative Jews,
” Gottlieb said. 
For decades, TBS has been served 
monthly by student rabbis through the 
Cincinnati-based Hebrew Union College-
Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). 
Earlier this year, it was announced the full-
time rabbinical school would be shuttered, 
affecting TBS and many other synagogues. 
What’s believed to be TBS’ final rabbin-
ical student is serving them once a month 
through the end of the current academic 
year. 
“Right now, we’re in the beginning of our 
search for a spiritual leader. It will be the 
first time we have a non-student spiritual 
leader since at least the early-1980s, late- 
1970s,
” Gottlieb said. 
TBS is working with the Central 

Conference of American Rabbis for the 
search as well as putting out feelers on their 
own. 
“We will have someone. I can already 
guarantee that because of the responses 
we’ve had,
” Gottlieb added. “It’s just a mat-
ter of who.
” 
What sets Temple Beth Sholom apart, 
Gottlieb believes, is the reality of so few 
Jews in the area.

“We have this magnificent building in 
the middle of Marquette and this small 
group of Jews who have really made an 
impact in our community. What makes us 
unique? 
“There are Jews in the Upper Peninsula; 
who would have thought it?” Gottlieb said. 
“I think we have a bigger presence than our 
numbers would suggest. It’s a wonderful 
place to be a Jew.
” 

Congregants 
on the bimah 
at Temple Beth 
Sholom.

Cary 
Gottlieb

Supported through the generosity of The Jewish Fund and the D. Dan and Betty Kahn Family Foundation.

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