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October 22, 2004/Cheshvan 7 5765, Vol. 57, No. 8
Temple Beth Israel installs new rabbi
LEISAH NAMM
Managing Editor
Rabbi Jessica Zimmerman will be installed as Temple Beth Israel's assistant rabbi 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 29, at the synagogue, 10460 N. 56th St., Scottsdale.
Although she's only been on the staff of the Reform congregation since Aug. 15, she's "already won over the hearts and minds of our congregants," said temple president Steve Lisker.
The feeling is mutual. "I love the warm and welcoming community," she said. "People have really made me feel welcome."
Zimmerman's responsibilities include teaching members of all ages and supervising the caring committee, a group designed "to make the congregation a place of real community," she said. She also leads services and coordinates the conversion program.
Rabbi Martin Wiener, former spiritual leader of Zimmerman's childhood synagogue, Sherith Israel in San Francisco, will conduct the installation. In 2003, Wiener also conducted the installation for Rabbi Stephen Kahn, TBI's senior rabbi; Kahn attended Sherith Israel in high school.
Zimmerman and Kahn later worked together at Sherith Israel in summer 2001; Zimmerman as a rabbinic intern, Kahn as the rabbi.
"She's got an insatiable curiosity and energy and spirit for being a leader in the Jewish community," Kahn said. "She's extremely bright and also very passionate and fun. She's fun to be around and fun to work with. She's got really great skills at making Judaism alive and bringing it to people."
Zimmerman graduated with a bachelor's degree in art history from Columbia University in 1995 and was ordained as a rabbi from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York in 2003. She most recently served as the Marshal T. Meyer Rabbinic Fellow at Congregation B'nai Jeshurn in New York City, a congregation of about 2,000 families.
She has also worked as a rabbinic intern at the Community Synagogue in Port Washington, N.Y.; held High Holiday student pulpits in San Jose, Costa Rica; Rocky Mount, N.C.; and Bombay, India; and was a student rabbi in Juneau, Alaska.
Kahn said he thinks Zimmerman is "going to be an asset to the whole community.
"She's got the charisma and the knowledge and the intelligence and the ability to articulate a message of Judaism in a way that's going to affect more than just the members of Temple Beth Israel."
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