A half century ago, Bernard Reichman was a young rabbi driving his family from New York City to the hinterlands of Wisconsin.
“My jalopy got stuck in a place called Lone Rock,” Reichman recalled. “It had to be towed into La Crosse.”
Reichman served the Congregation Sons of Abraham in La Crosse for a half dozen years before coming to Milwaukee as the spiritual leader of Congregation Anshai Lebowitz, one of the oldest congregations in the state.
On Oct. 21, Reichman will be honored at the annual Crown of Torah dinner at the Joseph and Rebecca Peltz Center for Jewish Life, 2233 W. Mequon Road.
Reichman said the event will be his thanksgiving celebration.
“It is a time to give thanks to God for 50 years of participating in the lives of the congregation, being with them in times of joy and times of sorrow,” he said.
Reichman was born in Jerusalem, the second of four children, the fifth generation of his family to live in the spiritual center for the Jewish people. His father owned a restaurant where many rabbis congregated.
The Great Depression hit Israel, then known as Palestine, hard. To support his family, Reichman’s father immigrated to New York City. Reichman was 14 when he arrived in the United States with the rest of the family a few months later.
Although his father was a businessman, he also was a scholar who imparted the thirst for learning to his children. Reichman attended yeshiva in New York for his Jewish education; he also went to night school for English and secular studies.
“I didn’t go to yeshiva to become a rabbi, but just to study,” Reichman said. “But I was accepted as a spiritual leader as a young man,”
He was ordained at Mesivta Rabbi Chaim Berlin at the age of 22. He taught at schools in New York and New Jersey, taking some time off to visit Israel. There he met Shoshana Weingarten. The couple married in New York and worked together for 43 years until her death in 2000.
Despite his inauspicious entry, Reichman said he grew to love La Crosse and cherished its small-town intimacy.
All were welcome at his synagogue but perhaps the most unusual gathering occurred a short time after the Vatican gave Catholics permission to observe the services of other faiths. His synagogue “was packed” with nuns, dressed in traditional habits.
While in La Crosse, the teacher continued to study — psychology at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and education at the University of Minnesota. Reichman also frequently visited Milwaukee where he bought kosher food and became an active part of the broader community of rabbis through the Wisconsin Council of Rabbis, a group he served as president for two terms.
In 1965, he was hired as rabbi for Congregation Anshai Lebowitz, one of the first congregations in Milwaukee. Franklyn Gimbel, a Milwaukee lawyer, recalled that his family had been members of the congregation when it was located at N. 11th St. and W. Reservoir Ave.
It later moved to a two-story building at N. 52nd and W. Burleigh Sts., an area that was the heart of Milwaukee’s traditional Jewish community. By 1965, the neighborhood had changed and the congregation waned. In the late 1990s, the congregation moved to its present location 2415 W. Mequon Rd.
Reichman said the congregation was mostly older and suburban by the time he arrived.
“The first thing I did was establish a school,” Reichman said. “The school was very successful.”
Daniel Chudnow, the chair of the upcoming dinner, described Reichman as a gentle teacher.
“He’s very Orthodox but he is accepting of others,” Chudnow said. “I’ve seen him bring in people who are not as observant. He teaches by example, not by chastising them.”
“It means ‘easy to be with,’” Chudnow said. “My oldest son was ‘bar mitzvahed’ a few years ago and even he loved his Sunday morning meetings with Rabbi Reichman.”
The Rev. Norman Oswald, the head of the chaplains at the Veterans Administration Hospital where Reichman serves part time, said that being a rabbi is not simply a job for his colleague.
“It’s who he is,” Oswald said. “I’ve never met a man with a bigger heart and soul.”
Not long ago, another rabbi visited the VA before going on to Madison, Oswald said. In Madison, the visiting rabbi’s wife had a heart attack.
“Rabbi Reichman immediately drove to Madison and stayed with the family, went way beyond the call of duty,” Oswald said. “That is what he does. He is one of those people who are the pillars of the community, someone others build their lives on. He is a gift.”
Reichman said he has no immediate plans for retirement but has one task before him: To find a way for his congregation to continue.
“Anshai Lebowitz is the only congregation that never merged with another,” he said. “But we are at a crossroads. Financially, we need to.”
The heritage of the congregation is great, he said, adding that it must be preserved.
“That is my aim, my mission,” he said. “One possibility is to merge with another congregation. Another is to relocate.”
Marie Rohde is a Milwaukee freelance writer.
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