Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on May 18, 2014

Yael Splansky, the new senior rabbi at Holy Blossom Temple, had a joyous encounter this week. A former member of the congregation who had fallen away from the fold approached her to say that he and his family had decided to rejoin the prestigious Toronto synagogue.

They feel we are on the right track, said Splansky, who was designated as senior rabbi last month after acting in the role for two years.

After a difficult transition from the rabbinate of her predecessor, John Moscowitz, Splanskys job is to convince a diverse and sometimes fractious membership of 6,500 that Holy Blossom is indeed back on track. She has to reengage the members alienated by her cerebral predecessor and calm the ones angry at the way he was pushed aside, but more importantly still, she has to reach new congregants, especially from interfaith families.

Holy Blossom is Canadas most influential synagogue, with a powerful membership that includes top Bay Street lawyers and investment bankers as well as a senator or two. But, like many mainstream Jewish institutions, it is facing an existential crisis: Its membership is declining and yet split on religious and cultural questions. Splansky, who was selected after an exhaustive search, has to oversee a contentious $30-million renovation to the 76-year-old temple, tiptoe around varying views on Israel, ensure the competing needs of different generations are met and preach inspirational sermons to boot. The least of her worries is that she is the first woman ever to hold the job.

There are women and men those who approach me [and] say I think its terrific; that Holy Blossom Temple is bold enough to make to make a woman a senior rabbi. In the minds of some of our congregation its significant in terms of egalitarianism and liberal thinking, she said. Others barely notice. The Reform branch of Judaism to which Holy Blossom adheres has been faster to promote female clergy than many Christian churches. There have been women in assistant rabbi roles at Holy Blossom since 1980.

By the time I got there, nobody blinked, said Splansky, who started work at Holy Blossom as an assistant rabbi in 1998 and was promoted to associate rabbi in 2000.

Still, Splansky, a 43-year-old mother of three school-age boys and a fourth-generation Reform rabbi who hails from the Boston area, represents a big change in style at Holy Blossom. She is the author of a Jewish prayer book and cites Torah study as the highlight of her week, but what her congregants value is her empathy, humility and tact. In keeping with a traditional model of the rabbi as a teacher and scholar, her predecessors formed a long line of patrician and sometimes intimidating men Moscowitz, in particular, was noted for his cool intellect who were better at delivering important sermons than offering the Kleenex box.

She is just so opposite to every other rabbi weve had, said lifelong member Phyllis Pepper who was in kindergarten when Holy Blossom moved into its current building the 1930s. They have all had great stature and that is what she lacks [But] what is really important and we havent had for a long time is someone who really cares about the congregation.

Moscowitz is an intellectual as a rabbi, he was interested in ideas and matters of the mind; he had a formidable intellect, said congregant Allan Gotlieb, the former Canadian ambassador to the United States. She is a very different personality Shes an extremely nice person, very warm.

That warmth is already starting to heal the wounds that were opened in 2012 when the synagogues board announced Moscowitz would be taking a three-year sabbatical and then retiring. (The sabbatical ends in June, 2015, at which point Splansky officially becomes senior rabbi.)

Continue reading here:

A Toronto rabbi builds a big tent

Category: Synagogue
Tags: