Rabbi Michael Goldstein

I was born in Houston, Texas and spent my childhood in locales from New York to Washington State. In high school, I became deeply involved in the Young Judaea youth movement, spending the year before entering college on its year course in Israel program. I lived on kibbutz, studied in Jerusalem and explored the country from the Sinai to the Lebanon border. I earned my B.A. at Brandeis University, majoring in Archeology and Near Eastern History. My four years at Brandeis strengthened my sense of community as I was active in Hillel and a founder of the Student Coalition for Soviet Jewry.

After my junior year at the Institute of Archeology of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, I resolved to become a rabbi, attended the Jewish Theological Seminary for six years, and received ordination in 1987. In the summers, I worked as an educator and unit leader at Camp Ramah in the Poconos. I witnessed the all encompassing Jewish community Ramah constructs, making this value central in my understanding of Jewish identity.

While at JTS, I planned and worked to establish the first Conservative kibbutz, Kibbutz Hanaton. Upon completing my Masters of Education degree from Teachers College, Columbia University, I made aliyah to Hanaton. It was my hope and dream that the kibbutz would become a successful community, a shining example of combining the values of Conservative Judaism and building the Land of Israel.

I directed Hanaton’s Education and Seminar Center, in addition to taking my turn at milking sheep and picking hot house tomatoes. I worked with populations of all ages and nationalities on topics including: Jewish pluralism, Jewish environmental attitudes, and the philosophy of kibbutz. My years in Israel taught me to value multiple expressions of Judaism and to recognize how very different Jews could nevertheless live together and support one another in achieving the mutual goal of a strong Jewish community.

My greatest achievement, however, was meeting my wife Annette. Annette had moved from Dallas to a kibbutz in the Negev. We met in Tel Aviv, married in 1990, and our eldest daughter, Michal, was born a year later.

We returned to the United States in 1992 to assume the pulpit of the Glen Rock Jewish Center, succeeding the founding rabbi and reconnecting the congregation to the greater Jewish and general community in Bergen County, New Jersey. I was very active in various initiatives to create community-wide adult education, a strong rabbinical association, and to bring the Jewish Federation and synagogues closer together.

I devoted time to Solomon Schechter Day School, heading its Rabbinical Advisory Committee and serving two terms on its Board of Trustees. I also spearheaded several on-going social action efforts that engaged the congregation in fulfilling the Jewish values of feeding the hungry, clothing the needy, tending to the sick and housing the homeless. I created a web of family education programming that brought opportunities for both formal learning and hands-on tikkun olam (repairing the world) to parents and children of all ages.

Our children, Gila and Ari were born in Glen Rock where they joined their older sister as a regular presence in synagogue and in the community. We frequently hosted congregants at our home and enjoyed a yearly Open Sukkah for the whole congregation to gather. It was a joy to share our family simchas with our synagogue family and community.

I spent a deeply fulfilling year (2006-2007) as the Interim Rabbi at Congregation Bnai Tikvah, North Brunswick New Jersey, as both rabbi and synagogue searched for a new beginning. My family and I maintain very close friendships from that experience. Since July 2007, I have served Temple Beth Torah in Ocean, New Jersey, renewing the congregation after fifteen months without a permanent rabbi, revitalizing the Hebrew and Hebrew High School programs, offering a spectrum of adult education classes, and working closely with the executive director, education director, cantor and lay leadership. In January 2009, the leadership entered into merger talks with another Conservative congregation. I have now assumed an added role assisting the leadership by publicly supporting the decision to merge congregations, educate the membership and determine future priorities by advocating and implementing programming between the two synagogues, including but not limited to worship services, adult education, Hebrew School and social events.

The Hebrew word for synagogue means house of gathering. That well defines how I understand what a synagogue should be. Everything that I do, every action that I take is directed to connecting with others so that we all become stronger. As we travel our individual paths, we will find frequent points of intersection for gathering. It is there that the richness of Jewish expression can be found. It is not only through worship that we become closer to God and to one another, but also through other paths: community, tikkun olam, the creation of connections between individuals, a shared spiritual purpose, music and the study of Jewish texts and traditions.

A rabbi leads by example, but also learns from others. My vision is of a synagogue community whose members sustain one another in time of need, celebrate together in time of joy, and maintain an open door in welcoming all to enter. I have spent my adult life and career building strong communities. Annette and I look forward to a new community, beginning a new chapter in our lives, and setting firm roots in new soil.