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May 17, 2002/Sivan 6, 5762, Vol. 54, No.35
Prescott temple hires new rabbi
LEISAH NAMM
Assistant Editor
Temple B'rith Shalom in Prescott has hired a new rabbi to serve its 157 member families.
Rabbi David E. Lipman, who currently leads a Reform congregation in Cranston, R.I., fills the future gap left by Rabbi William Berkowitz, who will leave the synagogue in June.
Berkowitz has served the congregation for seven years.
Before his arrival, the nearly 25-year-old Reform congregation was led by student rabbis, had about 60 families and didn't have its own building, said president Suzanne Allender.
"(Berkowitz) has been very much involved in and responsible for more than doubling the size of the synagogue, tracking people so that we were able to build a building and enabling us to have much richer programming," Allender said.
B'rith Shalom is the first synagogue in Northern Arizona to have built its own building, which is now four years old, she added.
Berkowitz is also given credit "for improving and strengthening the ties between the Jewish community in Prescott and the wider community," she said. "He's done a terrific job with interacting with the other clergy here in Prescott and having a Jewish voice being heard in the general community.
"In all those ways, he's been a tremendous help to the Jewish community here. We're very sorry to see him leave but we understand that sometimes other things have to take precedence, in this case his family."
As Berkowitz enters this "period of transition," he is "excited about where this may lead," he says.
His short-term plans include remaining in Prescott and attending Temple B'rith Shalom, and he says he will always remember "how nice and friendly and warm and accepting this congregation has been."
The congregation will hold a dinner dance in honor of Berkowitz on June 16 (see Details box).
The congregation currently has weekly Shabbat services, adult education programs, religious school and a sisterhood. About 20-30 member families live part-time in the Phoenix area, Allender said.
Besides serving as rabbi at Temple Sinai in Rhode Island, Lipman is a board member of Jewish Services for the Elderly and the Jewish Federation of Rhode Island, a teacher in a community Jewish high school, a lecturer at Providence Jewish Renaissance and the creator of the Jewish Web site www.jewishgates.org. He was ordained in 1978 at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. He will move to Prescott with wife Robyn Tevah.
Details
- What: Gala dinner dance in honor of Rabbi William Berkowitz
- Who: Temple B'rith Shalom
- When: 6 p.m. Sunday, June 16
- Where: Prescott Resort, 1500 Highway 69
- Cost: $36
- Call: (928) 708-0018
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