The TI Scene

Mike Fishbein, Rabbi Soffer, and Barbara Berke smile for the camera

Members of the Museum Committee pose with Rabbi Friedman 477 Hanukkah Party at the home of Frank Friedman and Sarah Kianovsky

The Annual Library Book Fair was another success TILLI at the State House

Cantor Einhorn with past B’nei Mitzvah students

A MESSAGE FROM DEAN RICHLIN

The process that culminated in last month’s selection of Rabbi Elaine Zecher as Temple Israel’s next Senior Rabbi began of course with Rabbi Friedman’s retirement announcement followed by the decision by the Board of Trustees to initiate an open search. In order to conduct that search, the Officers and Board selected a diverse committee of Temple Israel members to serve on the Rabbinic Search Committee (RSC). It was my great honor to chair that committee, and I am grateful for the extraordinary contribution each committee member made to this process. Throughout this past year, the RSC understood that we represented all of you; we felt keenly the weight of that responsibility. We therefore worked to the best of our ability and as hard as we knew how. Specifically, we worked to gather information from congregants by a congregational survey and in five separate town hall meetings;

we developed a comprehensive position description; we engaged in outreach to over 100 rabbis and Jewish community activists and professionals to seek recommendations and encourage applications; we conferred with the Rabbinic Placement Bureau of the Central Conference of American Rabbis; and we heard from many of you individually, in countless conversations and written communications, all of which were obviously thoughtful and heartfelt. Dean Richlin addressing the congregation Ultimately, we identified four finalists, each, in our judgment, qualified to lead Temple Israel. After an extensive process of interviews, encounters and reference checking, we met to deliberate and reach a decision. We returned to the original criteria for a Senior Rabbi contained in our position description. We factored in the needs of the congregation, the historic role of Temple Israel, the extraordinary challenges we face, and the unique nature of the Senior Rabbi position. In the course of three sessions and almost ten hours of deliberations, a prevailing view began to develop - that Rabbi Zecher, by experience, skill, personal qualities and vision is the best qualified to serve as Temple Israel’s next Senior Rabbi. It is a recommendation we made with enormous pride and enthusiasm.