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Saturday, June 12, 2010

S.L. synagogue hires third-generation rabbi 



A third-generation rabbi, Ilana Schwartzman, has been hired to lead Congregation Kol Ami in Salt Lake City.

Schwartzman, now assistant rabbi at Temple Beth Zion in Buffalo, N.Y., will replace Rabbi Tracee Rosen on July 1. Rosen, who led the congregation for six years, has been on sabbatical since December.

"She is just what we were looking for," said search committee co-chairman Danny Burman of the new rabbi. "She brings a whole lot of energy and passion She knows what it takes to move a community forward. She has a real passion and compassion for people and their story, for engaging people through one pathway or another back into their Jewish community."

Schwartzman, 31, was one of 36 applicants for the job. Sixteen were interviewed via Skype, allowing the committee and candidates to converse by camera on the Internet. Three finalists spent time at Kol Ami this spring, leading services, teaching classes and getting to know congregants.

"Everyone just fell for her," Burman said.

Schwartzman, who made a return visit to Utah and accepted the synagogue's offer, was taken with Salt Lake City's beauty and bowled over by its thriving and involved Jewish community.

It is rare, she acknowledged, for someone her age to be offered such a job.

"I feel like I've been given a lot of trust," she said by telephone from Buffalo, "and I'm hoping to find a lot of mentors."

Congregation Kol Ami is unusual in that it has services for both the Conservative and Reform movements within Judaism, the result of a merger 36 years ago.

Schwartzman is from the Reform movement and sees this as a chance to "grow and learn" about the Conservative branch. Rosen was from the Conservative movement.

Schwartzman and her boyfriend will be driving to Utah in a week, she said.

According to her biography, Schwartzman was born in Biloxi, Miss., and grew up in a range of places -- Colorado, Texas, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Germany and Greece -- because her father, Rabbi Joel Schwartzman, was a longtime Air Force chaplain. He now serves a Denver congregation.

Her grandfather, Rabbi Sylvan Schwartzman, was professor of education and practical rabbinics at Hebrew Union College. Her mother, Ziva Schwartzman, is Israeli.

Schwartzman earned a bachelor's degree in English at the University of Virginia in 2001 and a master's degree in Hebrew letters and rabbinic ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati in 2007.

She also studied Hebrew at Ben Gurion University in Israel. Before joining Temple Beth Zion in Buffalo, Schwartzman served student pulpits in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., Parkersburg, W.Va., and Marion, Ind.

Schwartzman is fluent in Hebrew and has a deep understanding of the culture, Burman said. "She is wise beyond her years."

http://www.sltrib.com/D=g/ci_15280609

Comments:
SUCH YIDDISH NACHAS

 

A shanda.

 

she might come across with a nice smile but her Neshomeh is crying out loud !!!

What a Chilul Hashem.

 

A shanda? A chilul Hashem? A disgrace? Why? Are you afraid that a woman might know more Torah than you do?

 

She may have a lot of knowledge, but i doubt she know a lot more of our Pure unadulterated Torah. The lies she was taught and will teach others does not qualify as Torah. If she actually learned the Holy Torah and followed its laws, I don't think she would be in that profession.

 

Know more torah???? Thats what you ask when one of us gets it right and declares this a shanda. When open znus is practiced by so called imposter 'rabbis'?????

In their wildest dreams Mendelsohn and his cronies couldn't have come up with this script. This is a disgrace to the Jewish religion - one based on the bible - given to us by Moses on Mt Sinai.
As the story of R' Akiva and his colleagues as described at the end of Mechet Makkot concerning the place of the destroyed Bet Hamikdash. They cried and R' Akiva laughed. His reason was just as the prophesy of the distruction came to pass, so too will the prophesy concerning redemption will also come true. Certainly, when one hears this story we can see that the time of redemption is now for how much longer can we take.......

So I smile....

 

Don't think that your Torah is pure and unadulterated. Perhaps the text is, but certainly not your interpretation. What's a minhag, if not an adulteration? Sure, we accept them all as valid, but by definition, they are different, changed.

As for a woman being in "that profession," was it wrong for Devorah to be a judge? Do you think she didn't know Torah? Was her being a judge different from being a Rabbi? Now, I don't want to say Ms. Schwartzman is in any way equal to Devorah or many of the other female prophets or leaders if Israel , but don't just discount someone because of her gender.

It is well established that the line of semicha from Moshe was broken long ago. No Rabbi today can be legitimately called so.

I still don't understand how this is a shanda or chilul Hashem. From whom shall we be embarrassed? How is this desecrating G-d? Certainly from outside the Orthodox world, this is seen as a good thing, and therefore, a kiddush Hashem.

Znus? Well, her shirt is a bit low cut.

As to your prayer for the rebuilding of the beit hamikdash, Amen.

 

Is her "boyfriend" going to be the rebbetzin?

 

Get off your high horse - her neshoma is quite a bit purer than most of yours.

 

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