Beth Emeth names interim clergyman

Bright signs one-year deal as rabbi/cantor

CHRIS GARIFO
Staff Writer

Alan Bright has been appointed interim rabbi at Sun City West's Beth Emeth Congregation of the Northwest Valley.

Bright has been the Conservative congregation's cantor since November, and now will carry out both rabbinic and cantorial functions. He has signed a one-year contract and will assume his position on Friday, Aug. 13.

The congregation, meanwhile, will continue to search for a permanent rabbi to take over for Rabbi Seymour Moskowitz, who has retired, said Tom Wallace, office manager.

Bright said he believes the congregation's board of directors would like him to be the permanent rabbi, but he is not prepared to quit his business. Bright owns his own company, Benley Investments LLC, which he said buys commercial property and retirement homes, refurbishes them, and then resells them. He said he can handle the rabbi/cantor position part-time while continuing in his business for a year, but the 400-member congregation will eventually need a full-time rabbi as it continues to grow.

Bright, 38, was born and raised in an Orthodox family in London. His father was the first Orthodox Jewish mayor of Hackney, England, he noted. However, Bright said he remembers being beaten up as a boy because he was Jewish.

"Anti-Semitism has always been prevalent (in England) and always will be," he said.

He began singing duets with the cantor at his family's synagogue at the age of 6. At age 19, he was appointed cantor of the Cricklewood Synagogue in London and, five years later, he became cantor at the Wembley Synagogue, also in London. In 1988, he moved to the United States, and in 1989, he accepted a position as part-time cantor at the Boca Raton Synagogue, a small, Orthodox congregation in Florida.

In 1993, Bright was ordained as an Orthodox rabbi by Yeshivot Rivevot Ephraim in Memphis, Tenn. He moved to Arizona in November 1998, after spending about a year in San Diego; prior to that he was in Florida.

He noted that doubling as both rabbi and cantor part-time is not new to him; he held that same dual role at Conservative Congregation B'nai Tikvah, in Vista, Calif., a suburb of San Diego.

"I don't find it too difficult. It's sometimes a bit tiring, like for the High Holidays."

He said it usually requires that he rearranges a few things, such as preaching at the end of the service, rather than at the beginning, so that his singing voice isn't strained too much early on.

Despite his Orthodox background and ordination, Bright says he is very comfortable working for Conservative congregations.

Bright said he gets "terrific enjoyment" from both his cantor and his rabbi duties, but the cantorate is "my first and deeper love." He said being a rabbi affords him "the ability to help people (and) the ability to ... try to make sense of the tumultuous world we live in today."

Bright said he brings to his new position "a young perspective, a totally different perspective than has been there thus far."

"I also think ... we're showing the congregation that it's not just an adult congregation," Bright added. "In actual fact, for it to survive, it's not good enough to wait for elderly people to move in and increase the membership that way, but (rather the congregation should) go out and do outreach and get people in."

As part of that effort, he said, the congregation will be starting a Hebrew school that will offer classes for adults and children.

Bright is married to Elizabeth, his wife of seven years, and they have two children. And he has two children from a previous marriage. He said he also is a licensed pilot with a commercial multi-engine instrument rating and a flight instructor's rating.

Moskowitz said he and his wife, Selma, will remain members of the congregation as he enjoys his retirement, which became effective Aug. 1.

He is writing a historical novel about the Muslim conquest of Spain, he added.

Moskowitz, 70, said he has been asked to continue as rabbi emeritus at Beth Emeth. Moskowitz was Beth Emeth's rabbi for six years. Before that, he spent 30 years as an Army chaplain, retiring from the military in 1986 and becoming the rabbi of a congregation in Louisiana.

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