Customer Reviews

The New Rabbi: A Congregation Searches for Its Leader

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THE NEW RABBI gives us an inside look at the rabbinical search process at a notable North American shul. Though the congregation in question is Conservative, the search process described closely parallels the process of my own Reform movement. The emotions, personalities and politics described certainly reflect universal aspects of synagogue life.

The book is also in part a meditation on being a rabbi in the North Ameican milieu. His examination of the career of the out-going rabbi, Gerald Wolpe, is both frank and compelling. But while the author spends a great deal of time reflecting on the life of R. Wolpe and on his assistant and potential in-house successor, Jacob Harber, he really concentrates on the congregation's perspective in the search. As a result, we do not get a real sense of what the search process feels like to the applicant rabbis. Harber is, in a sense, drafted by the congregation, so his experience is less than paradigmatic. Perhaps, as a rabbi, I over-identify with that aspect. Still, I wish he had spent some time interviewing the rabbinical candidates for Har Zion to include their POV.

Even so, this is a first-rate bit of investigative journalism on a little-know and sensitive aspect of Jewish communal life. While the author writes sympathetically about everyone involves, this work is revealing enough to make me wonder whether he will be welcome back at Har Zion any time soon.

The issues that come up in THE NEW RABBI will, at times, seem arcane to someone totally unfamiliar with synaogues. Nevertheless it is well-done and most readable. Most people involved in organized religion of any sort will get something out of it, and it certainly it should be required reading for rabbis and search committees in shuls everywhere.

I became interested in reading Steven Fried's book after I heard him interviewed on National Public Radio. Having just participated in the "new rabbi search" at my own synagogue in the Western suburbs of Chicago, I was curious to see if the experiences documented by Mr. Fried mirrored my own experience.

Although Har Zion, the synagogue followed in Mr. Fried's book is much larger and more influential than my own, I have to report that the rabbi search process seems to have some universal themes common to the process. We too "fell in love" with a candidate who ultimately "rejected" us...leaving the committee feeling like a jilted suitor at the altar. Our committee also harbored deep suspicions that the Rabbinic Movement was somehow keeping all the really qualified candidates from applying for our opening. And, of course, there was the usual political manipulating and jockeying for position to be appointed to the search committee and to be on the inside track for information on the candidates. Mr. Fried documents this process with sensitivity and wit.

I also identified with Mr. Fried's search for new meaning and connection with Judaism after the death of his father. His discussion of his emotional and intellectual growth made a perfect counterpoint to the new rabbi saga, never overwhelming the main story line.

Although I knew the outcome of the Har Zion search process from Mr. Fried's NPR interview, knowing the ultimate outcome of the search was not an impediment to enjoying the book. Mr. Fried's writing style never bogged down in tedious detail and the delineated the major players in the story while avoiding confusing the reader. While the book documents an actual rabbi search, Mr. Fried's pacing keeps the story moving like a novel. I found myself rooting for Har Zion and am curious to know if their new rabbi has lived up to expectations.

I've been recommending this book to everyone who participated in my synagogue's rabbi search. It's good to know that it wasn't just us.

Author Fried purports to tell the story of how a large and wealthy conservative congregation on the Philadelphia Main Line went through the process of replacing its retiring rabbi. It's actually quite some time before he gets into the essence of the story, and I found myself thinking, when is he going to get to the search? But he gets there and leaves no stone unturned. It is a truly ugly story and it made me feel grateful that I didn't belong to that congregation.
My own congregation recently went through a search for a new rabbi when ours left for a promotion after 14 years with us. This book is more than just the search for a new rabbi. It is a look at the inner workings of the conservative movement and the politics involved when this congregation decided to play hardball with the movement powers that be. I will not detail the end of the story (which, unfortunately is not in the book), but I will tell you it is not a pretty story, but I could not put the book down. Anyone who cares about this sort of thing should find the book endlessly fascinating as I did.

Fried's "The New Rabbi" is an engaging and insightful look not only at the lives of rabbis today but also at the hiring process, part of the greater whole he terms "the retail business." Having been involved in any number of job searches over the last number of years, I can attest that even in smaller congregations where less is at stake than Har Zion, emotions on both sides can - and do - run high.

If there is one lesson to be taken from this book, it is this - that synagogue life is, at heart, a business. The search committee, it seems, allowed itself to be swayed by the cult of personality which pervades our small profession. In the process, they failed to articulate a sense of what they were looking for, rather than whom they were looking for. Hence they passed up many suitable candidates, and in the process wound up hurting many people.

One hopes this is a story where "all's well that ends well." I personally harbor my doubts. Only when large organizations behave in a more professional manner will they will become successful once again.

Having sat on a rabbinic search committee in my own shul, as well as three cantorial search committees, I found this book fascinating and on the mark. Our synagogue is much smaller than Har Zion, but the political travails, the ego clashes, and the resulting ruffled feathers seem to be the same across all sizes and denominations of synagogues. Fried has an easy literary style which places you in the middle of the action. Sharing his own personal insights and experiences may annoy some readers, but I found that they made the story more accessible. Hands down, I recommend this book, particularly to those who are active in their congregations.

I loved the book. It reads like a mystery, so that you can't wait to find out what happens next, as the decision making process takes unexpected twists and turns with every chapter.
As a Catholic accustomed to pastoral appointments, I finished the book with a sense of awe at the responsibility and spirituality within the process.

A superb and accurate look at the dynamics of a religious community. But, more important to me were the shared insights about the motivations, the fears, the uncertainty of the players at various times during the search for the "right" kind of rabbi. I howled with laughter at the behavior and decisions of committees and realized that there is little difference between what goes on in a commercial enterprise and what goes on at the shul. I realized that my own struggle to come to terms with my religion and upbringing is not unique. I couldn't put it down and will read it again and again.

I picked up this book primarily because I am fascinated by the way people choose different occupations, manage their careers and get selected for positions over their lifetime. Along the way, I gained a unique perspective on contemporary religion.

Fried is a masterful, professional journalist -- fanatical about accuracy, novelistic in style. He does not serve up composite people: everyone is real and only a few names are disguised. His gift is to keep the pages turning as we wonder, "How will this dilemma get resolved?"

His writing offers entertainment, particularly through his use of fresh metaphors and analogies. Repeatedly he refers to the retail level of religion -- a particularly apt metaphor, because the world Fried describes is unabashedly a business. As other reviewers have noted, the process resembles choosing a new corporate leader or (I would add) a university dean. Image matters: the committee dismisses one rabbi because he lacks a sense of style in the way he wears his head covering! And the congregation, which includes a healthy share of Philadelphia lawyers, does not believe any governing body can deny them the rabbi they want. Anything is negotiable!
to differentiate

Anthropology teaches us to differentiate between dogma religions (such as Catholicism and most Protestant sects) and tribal religions. In the latter, religious customs are developed and maintained to unify the participants and mark them as different from others.

Without this understanding, much of what Fried describes would have been baffling. Fried presents a membership that resembles a community not of believers but of heritage. People know each other. They went to camp together. They're more than friends.

And we learn a lot by what Fried doesn't say. As an outsider, I found myself wondering, "Where are the women? the single people? the non-traditional lifestyles?" Women can serve on committees but the real power remains with the men. Single people are mentioned only briefly in the context of "mixers." No one in Fried's world seems to believe that someone might choose to live alone, or with a same-sex partner, or without children. And no one moves, loses a job, faces financial disaster, or even lives with the aftermath of divorce. Membership is described by numbers of "families." No loners here!

Fried describes a group of people who have education and wealth and know how to maximize their resources. They contribute money to charities but their own troubles cause only embarrassment. Health problems are tragic but these people do not stand in line at HMO's. The only names not revealed are those of "Landis" family, whose child uses a religious ceremony to insult her mother. The matter is treated like a gaffe at the Junior League, not a reason to delve deeper into the mission of the organization that produced the dysfunctional family.

Fried writes an insider as well as a journalist, and the book has qualities of a memoir. While we gain some insights to his own psyche, we lose the context of the bigger picture: why is this important? Insiders don't ask -- but not all readers are insiders.

Fried devotes less than two pages to examples of friends who turned to religion as adults -- and these were anecdotal, random stories. We get a sense of an institution run by middle-aged, wealth white males, mostly for the purpose of maintaining a tradition. Fried does a good job of explaining the dynamics of the synagogue and its search for a new rabbi, but I would have liked to see him place the question in the context of American -- and even global -- society today.

I did find this book compulsively readable, although I'm not sure I can say why. The book has more human drama than intellectual enlightenment, and by the time I was done I wondered whether it was an efficient use of my time. But there were a few ideas that did grab me, though I suppose most of them were just common sense- being a pulpit rabbi involves a wide variey of tasks (including not just sermonizing and hospital visits, but also fundraising), an educated congregation gets more out of teaching Torah than of general sermonizing, etc. I'm moving to Philadelphia soon, and the book did give me a better feel for the city (even though I won't be living near the book that is the subject of the shul, I will live 2 blocks from the author's "home shul" in Center City- and I'm happy to say that he makes it lot a lot more attractive than the shul that is the subject of most of his book).

(P.S. As of 12-02, the "new" rabbi is now the ex-rabbi).

In this book Steven Fried used his investigative journalistic skill in reporting on the life and world of American Jews. He follows a distinguished rabbi as he finishes his thirty year career in a prominent Jewish congregation in Philadelphia. The account reads as smoothly as a well written novel. Anyone familiar with a church or synagogue will experience a feeling of kinship with the rabbis and their families as the story unfolds. The skillfully drawn portraits of other actors in the drama remind the reader of people familiar in their lives. No one who has served on a pulpit nominating committee or been the object of the committee's investigation can fail to enjoy Temple Har Zion's search for Rabbi Wolpe's successor. The rabbi's devotion to his invalid wife and her determined will to fill her place in life no matter what her physical limitation win the reader's admiration.

Both Jews and non Jews will find this an interesting and informative book.