S.L. synagogue hires third-generation rabbi
Congregation Kol Ami > S.L. synagogue hires third-generation rabbi from Buffalo to replace Rosen in July.
Updated: 06/11/2010 08:35:40 PM MDT
Ilana Schwartzman
A third-generation rabbi, Ilana Schwartzman, has been hired to lead Congregation Kol Ami in Salt Lake City.
Schwartzman, now assistant rabbi at Temple Beth Zion in Buffalo, N.Y., will replace Rabbi Tracee Rosen on July 1. Rosen, who led the congregation for six years, has been on sabbatical since December.
"She is just what we were looking for," said search committee co-chairman Danny Burman of the new rabbi. "She brings a whole lot of energy and passio
n She knows what it takes to move a community forward. She has a real passion and compassion for people and their story, for engaging people through one pathway or another back into their Jewish community."
Schwartzman, 31, was one of 36 applicants for the job. Sixteen were interviewed via Skype, allowing the committee and candidates to converse by camera on the Internet. Three finalists spent time at Kol Ami this spring, leading services, teaching classes and getting to know congregants.
"Everyone just fell for her," Burman said.
Schwartzman, who made a return visit to Utah and accepted the synagogue's offer, was taken with Salt Lake City's beauty and bowled over by its thriving and involved Jewish community.
It is rare, she acknowledged, for someone her age to be offered such a job.
"I feel like I've been given a lot of trust," she said by telephone from Buffalo, "and I'm hoping to find a lot of mentors."
Congregation Kol Ami is unusual in that it has services for both the Conservative and Reform movements within Judaism, the result of a merger 36 years ago.
Schwartzman is from the Reform movement and sees this as a chance to "grow and learn" about the Conservative branch. Rosen was from the Conservative movement.
Schwartzman and her boyfriend will be driving to Utah in a week, she said.
According to her biography, Schwartzman was born in Biloxi, Miss., and grew up in a range of places -- Colorado, Texas, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Germany and Greece -- because her father, Rabbi Joel Schwartzman, was a longtime Air Force chaplain. He now serves a Denver congregation.
Her grandfather, Rabbi Sylvan Schwartzman, was professor of education and practical rabbinics at Hebrew Union College. Her mother, Ziva Schwartzman, is Israeli.
Schwartzman earned a bachelor's degree in English at the University of Virginia in 2001 and a master's degree in Hebrew letters and rabbinic ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati in 2007.
She also studied Hebrew at Ben Gurion University in Israel. Before joining Temple Beth Zion in Buffalo, Schwartzman served student pulpits in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., Parkersburg, W.Va., and Marion, Ind.
Schwartzman is fluent in Hebrew and has a deep understanding of the culture, Burman said. "She is wise beyond her years."
kmoulton@sltrib.com