Jobs and families: In almost everyone’s life, there seem to be times that one must change or even sacrifice for the other.
And that seems to be what is happening with two significant area Jewish community figures.
Rabbi Gideon Goldenholz, spiritual leader of Beth El Ner Tamid Synagogue, and Cantor Ruth Berman Harris, who serves Congregation Sinai, will be leaving Milwaukee this summer. Both said they are doing so for family-related reasons.
Goldenholz, who has served Beth El since 1985, told The Chronicle in a telephone interview that “My family has got some health concerns and issues,” which he did not want to describe in detail. “I need to take care of that as my first priority and make that the focus of my activity.”
So this coming July, he will move to Hollywood, Fla., which he said is near Fort Lauderdale. He will not be taking another synagogue job. “I will take some time off and deal with family matters,” he said.
And he emphasized, “I’m not leaving for any negative reasons as far as the congregation is concerned…. I was not asked to leave, and I do not want to leave. Certain family matters take priority.”
Berman Harris also said that family issues are compelling her move, though not a crisis so much as “the needs of my family have changed.”
When she and her husband Lawrence Harris arrived in 2001, their children were 3, 1 and an infant. Now they are 8, 6 and 4 years old, and all five of the family members are “outdoor people.” Therefore, they are looking for a place with “warmer weather and no humidity … where we can be outdoors more.”
Unlike Goldenholz, Berman Harris, whose last day at Sinai will be June 30, is not yet certain where she will be going, though it likely will be somewhere toward the west or southwest. But she also knows that her next synagogue will have to be one that offers her what she encountered at Congregation Sinai.
“I have always lived and shared my life with people who had good souls and a sense of community,” she said. “I found it here. I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t feel that. I am looking for the same.” In fact, “If I were in the same situation as before, I would choose Congregation Sinai and Milwaukee.”
Looking back
In looking back over their years here, both said they enjoyed their time; grew and learned; and left behind accomplishments of which they are proud.
When he arrived in 1985 at age 32, Goldenholz told The Chronicle (June 28 issue) that he was not interested in then-controversial Conservative movement changes in gender egalitarianism, such as allowing women to read from the Torah in services.
Today, however, when asked about some of the accomplishments he is proud of, one of them is that “We’ve moved the congregation to be more egalitarian,” he said.
He is also proud of how the congregation’s school has been recognized by the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism as one of the best in the nation, having received the organization’s Solomon Schecter Award multiple times.
Beth El has also “opened up and participated in the greater community” during his time here, Goldenholz said. It has “done many things” with the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center; shared some of its space with Congregation Shir Hadash (Reconstructionist); and participated with the Mequon-Thiensville Clergy Association (which Goldenholz said he founded) in interfaith Thanksgiving services.
Berman Harris found her experience a lesson in cross-cultural living. She was born, grew up and trained in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and had lived in Israel before coming to Milwaukee.
At Sinai, her first cantorial job in a U.S. synagogue, she “learned about the culture and customs and what [American Jews] need from a congregation,” and how it differs from the societies she had seen before.
“In Argentina, Jews are a minority who are not well treated,” she said. “The need for connecting with other Jews is greater there because they are threatened.”
In Israel, people have less need to connect with their synagogues regularly because “they automatically live a Jewish life.” In the United States, the combination of Jews being a “totally accepted” minority means the synagogue can be a location for “social and cultural and not only religious” expression of Jewish life, she said.
Berman Harris, an alto, did make a recording of her singing here, but she said she didn’t feel that was really one of her “accomplishments,” as she intended it as “a tool to enable people to get closer to prayer.”
Rather, “challenging people, when they come to services to explore their own spirituality.
If I can do that, I feel accomplished,” she said. And she said Sinai members have told her she has done that for them.
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