The newly elected head of embattled Temple Emanu-El will try to bring congregants back to Hawaii’s largest synagogue and begin the search for a new rabbi after winning an election Sunday.
Cliff Halevi won election as Temple Emanu-El’s new board president, effective immediately, with 60 percent of the congregants’ vote, said both Halevi and his opponent, Alice Tucker, who had fought to keep Temple Emanu-El’s only rabbi.
All of the eight other candidates who ran on Halevi’s slate for board leadership also won.
Halevi plans to begin organizing a committee to look at Temple Emanu-El’s financial options to replace Rabbi Peter Schaktman, 52, whose contract will expire in June.
The congregation voted not to renew Schaktman’s contract at a raucous May meeting that involved Honolulu police and ended with one temple member in the hospital and another under arrest.
Schaktman, who cited the temple leadership’s colorful history of firing its rabbis, told the Star-Advertiser last week, "I’m not here to be liked. I’m here to be the rabbi."
But Halevi said that Schaktman’s replacement would "ideally be someone that is universally loved," adding, "Obviously, the person would have to be intelligent and a strong community leader. For a spiritual leader, when all is said and done, being a rabbi is not a business position. It’s spiritual. And the essence of spirituality is love. We’ve been a community that’s been accused of being toxic. I reject that entirely. I think this is a community in dire need of love."
Halevi said he has been stung by suggestions that Schaktman’s contract was not renewed because Schaktman is gay and an outspoken supporter of same-sex marriage in Hawaii.
"We are a totally inclusive community that welcomes everybody," Halevi said. "That’s important to say."
THE LAST THREE years of Schaktman’s seven-year tenure had split the congregation, and an estimated 60 families out of 230 left in just the last year.
In the aftermath, Halevi faces the difficult task of bringing them back and providing the temple with enough critical dues to afford to replace Schaktman, Tucker said.
"I’m not quitting the temple but quite a few are," Tucker said. "It’s scary."
Without their dues, Tucker said that recruiting Schaktman’s replacement will "be pretty blooming hard. Rabbis talk, and we have a terrible reputation of what we do to rabbis — and all of this is not going to help our reputation at all."
Even without the temple’s acrimony of the last few years, it still faces the problem of recruiting a new rabbi to an expensive, isolated chain of islands with a relatively sparse Jewish community, Tucker and others said.
"Heavens, I know I wish the congregation well," Tucker said, "but I’m scared because an awful lot of people are going to have to fork over a lot of money to get it out of debt and afford another rabbi."
Halevi said he tried to reach out to disenfranchised members and reassure them that membership increased when he previously led the board as its president.
"We had a proven track record of being an extended family," Halevi said. "It’s as simple as that. We were a unified community."
Following Sunday’s sweep of the board led by Halevi, Schaktman said, "Many people in the congregation have expressed great passion about the congregation, and now the time will come to find out whether that passion will translate into constructive action and whether people will get to be able to get beyond today’s vote and begin rebuilding a deeply damaged community."
Schaktman declined to speculate on how easy it will be for Temple Emanu-El to find its next spiritual leader but said, "The people who won this election have been consistent in their unwillingness to work with me. Should they be willing to work with me, I will do my best to support a constructive and healing process with the congregation."
Saundra Schwartz co-chaired the search committee that found Schaktman and said that the bad feelings that boiled over at the synagogue represent "a text study of bad governance."
Much healing has to occur at Temple Emanu-El, Schwartz said, "or we’re just going to burn out the next rabbi."
Temple Emanu-El is the only synagogue in Hawaii with its own temple — and the only on Oahu for those who want to practice Reform Judaism, said Schwartz, who used to belong to the Conservative Sof Ma’arav congregation, which rents space next to Temple Emanu-El.
So losing the only rabbi at Temple Emanu-El leaves Schwartz and her family with no option to join another Reform synagogue.
"You’re really isolated here, which makes it even harder to attract a rabbinical professional who really enjoys Jewish life, like having a Jewish neighborhood, or Jewish restaurants and other supporting cultural institutions like a Jewish community center or Jewish community foundation," Schwartz said. "We don’t have that infrastructure here."
Carl Zimmerman has worshipped at Temple Emanu-El since 1972 and seen rabbis come and go following disputes with their board leaders.
"It’s very damaging," Zimmerman said. "The temple’s very financial viability is threatened by all of this strife. They’re trying to save the temple from this insane divisiveness. But even the temple itself might not continue. There’s a lot at stake here."
