Now, in his 30th year as leader of the Conservative Kehillat Ma’arav congregation in Santa Monica, he recently reflected on his path to the rabbinate.
Her father died when she was an infant; when she was 23, her mother and 18-year-old sister died three months apart.
“How can you not go when you realize you can make a big difference?”
He has found music to be an effective avenue for Jewish day schools in general.
Schmidt’s job is not to bring back those who may have strayed but to oversee conversion candidates’ official final steps.
Rabbi Raff is as busy today as he was in the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Last Sept. 28, Rabbi Tova Leibovic-Douglas introduced The Ritual House, a place for spiritual renewal.
Latvia and Estonia Have “Addressed the Truth”; Lithuania continues to deny their part in the Holocaust.
What about the classroom that caught the rabbi’s attention? What drew him was “the sparkle in the eyes of the students who realized how wonderful Torah could be,” he said.
Rabbi Ben-Naim considers Los Angeles “the perfect place for me as a post-denominational, halachically inspired, rooted person.”
