Milwaukee-born Rabbi Andy Bachman, 51, has served Congregation Beth Elohim in New York City for nine years. During that time, he established a reputation as a dynamic spiritual leader who doubled the synagogue’s membership to some 1,000 families.
So it surprised his congregants and occasioned Jewish and community news media coverage when he announced that he would be stepping down in June 2015.
According to the New York Jewish Week, Bachman gave as his reason a desire to work in social action, “a need to devote his full-time energies to alleviating poverty in our society.”
According to the synagogue’s website, Bachman was raised in the northern Milwaukee suburbs and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1996.
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