A farewell Shabbat service for Beth Jacob Congregation Senior Rabbi Kalman Topp featured the beloved spiritual leader saying not goodbye but lehitraot (see you later) to the Pico-Robertson modern Orthodox community he’s overseen for the past 17 years.
Topp is departing Beth Jacob, where he has served as senior rabbi since 2009. He and his wife, Rebbetzin Jordana, are making aliyah. In Jerusalem, Topp plans to start a new congregation.
Beth Jacob Associate Rabbi Adir Posy told The Journal that the synagogue’s plans for a new senior rabbi will include the launch of a search committee.
Topp did not speak of those plans during the farewell service, held Aug. 8. Instead, addressing the hundreds seated in the main sanctuary’s pews, Topp spoke about what his nearly two decades of service to the congregation have meant to him.
His most gratifying moments, he said from the Beth Jacob bimah, were witnessing in real time the ways in which the synagogue fostered community — strangers becoming lifelong friends due to their shared involvement at the shul.
He recalled a Beth Jacob volunteer making a hospital visit at Cedars-Sinai to an elderly woman coping with illness, only to discover that they were both members of Beth Jacob. He also recalled two congregants who had previously only spoken by phone during the COVID pandemic as part of a campaign that encouraged members to call one another. Once in-person services resumed, the two met for the first time in the flesh.
These exchanges, Topp said, elevated his rabbinate from the ordinary to the sacred.
And they’re precisely what the synagogue’s leadership had envisioned when they sought out Topp for the role nearly two decades ago.
A community builder
Topp’s path to Beth Jacob wasn’t straightforward. He studied at the Sy Syms School of Business, the business program at Yeshiva University, where he earned his undergraduate degree in accounting. He was ordained at Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, the rabbinical seminary of Yeshiva University, and later earned a master’s degree in secondary education from the Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education.
His first pulpit role was as associate rabbi at the Young Israel of Woodmere, New York. He also served as a rabbi at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and taught Judaic studies at the Frisch School and Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway.
The pulpit role at Beth Jacob Congregation was one of two paths before him as he wrapped his time at Young Israel of Woodmere: He could either go to Israel to lead a community there or come to the West Coast.
He opted for the latter.
Those close to Topp say his strengths include his passion for teaching Torah. His nonjudgmental and unpretentious style has also allowed him to promote a warm and inclusive atmosphere. Additionally, his steadfast love of the Jewish people and an unflinching commitment to religious Zionism have helped shape the pro-Israel advocacy efforts at Beth Jacob.
He also has a deep love for sports. He often draws analogies between Torah and athletics that go over the heads of some of his congregants but are nonetheless appreciated.
These attributes have enabled him to build a tight-knit community at Beth Jacob, which is known as a thriving center of modern Orthodoxy. During Topp’s tenure, the congregation expanded its educational, social and Israel-focused programming while emphasizing the kind of personal connections that Topp highlighted in his farewell remarks.
Among his proudest achievements during his tenure was helping mobilize the Beth Jacob community around Israel and Jewish communal causes. The congregation has supported initiatives ranging from Jewish programming in Israel’s Golan Heights to emergency medical organizations. Topp has also been a visible advocate for Israel beyond Beth Jacob, serving in leadership roles with the Rabbinical Council of America and participating in national and local Israel advocacy efforts.
One particularly memorable example came in 2014, when Beth Jacob held a ceremony honoring the memories of the three Israeli teenagers — Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrach — who were kidnapped and murdered that year. The congregation has also been involved in supporting emergency medical efforts in Israel, including Magen David Adom.
Topp’s wife, Rebbetzin Jordana, has also been key to the shul’s success. A scholar and communal leader in her own right, she has served as Beth Jacob’s yoetzet halacha, providing women with guidance on matters of Jewish law and family life.
She’s known affectionately by congregants as the “power behind the throne.” So it was especially appropriate that she joined her husband on the bimah at the end of the farewell service, as everyone rose to their feet and applauded.
Additional speakers at the farewell service included Beth Jacob Board President Mark Goldin and Board Chairman Jack Fenigstein.
Moving toward something new
For Topp, the move to Israel represents less an ending than a new chapter in the communal work that has defined his rabbinate.
“It’s not moving away. It’s really that we’re moving towards something,” Topp said in a phone interview. “But Beth Jacob is a wonderful community. I leave with tremendous gratitude and affection.”
He said the outpouring of support from Beth Jacob’s congregants has reinforced those feelings.
“We have felt tremendous love and support from the shul. Their heartfelt words over the last couple of months and over this past weekend have touched us,” he said. “I came to the decision this is the right time in my career to make a broader impact and take on new opportunities. Israel is a big piece of that.”
Topp and Jordana plan to settle in Jerusalem, where he will help establish a new Anglo congregation in Givat Hamatos, Jerusalem’s first new neighborhood in decades. The community is envisioned as a place where English-speaking immigrants and other residents can build a vibrant Jewish communal life.
But Israel isn’t the only place where Topp plans to build something new. He is also launching Areivim, a “Torah-grounded community” in Los Angeles that will invite Jews of all backgrounds and levels of observance to participate in Shabbat dinners, classes and social events.
The twin projects reflect the same community-building philosophy that has guided Topp throughout his tenure at Beth Jacob: bringing Jews together around Torah, Jewish life and meaningful relationships, regardless of where they are on the spectrum of observance.
For Beth Jacob, meanwhile, the task will be finding the rabbi who can carry the congregation into its next chapter while preserving what Topp spent nearly two decades building.
“I’m going to miss being the rabbi there,” Topp said, “but also there’s a real sense of gratitude for having this experience and excitement about what comes next.”
After the final applause on Aug. 8, Topp and Jordana made their way from the bimah, leaving behind a community that had become, in many ways, an extension of their own family.
A special kiddush followed in the synagogue’s outdoor courtyard, giving congregants one more opportunity to share memories and celebrate the rabbi who had spent 17 years teaching them that the essence of a synagogue is not simply the place where people pray — but the relationships they build when they come together.
