ALUMNI CHANGING THE WORLD
2009
ISSUE 72 |
55
I
t’s a long commute. In some ways, I am a regular congregational
rabbi: I lead services, give sermons, teach, officiate at different life
cycle events, and have student interns. In other ways, I am not a reg-
ular congregational rabbi because my congregation or more accurately,
congregations, are so widespread. I am an itinerant rabbi who visits
multiple pulpits, and each of them is very different. But they all share
the same qualities: they are Southern and they do not have full-time
clergy. They may have a student rabbi, a part time rabbi, or a retired
rabbi who visits them once a month. There are congregations just like
them throughout the country.
The demographics of the congregations that I serve are very dif-
ferent. Some are old enough to have been founding congregations of
the Union of American Hebrew Congregations [now the Union for
Reform Judaism] in 1873. Some have sprung up in the last twenty
years. Because of the advanced age of the congregants, religious school
is a distant memory for some of these congregations, but for other
congregations, with members who are young families with children,
it remains a very vital part of the community. Some of these congre-
gations are very rural and some are in the midst of good-sized cities. I
serve communities that are Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist,
Orthodox, and unaffiliated, which makes leading worship interesting
each
Shabbat
.
In each place, I find an underserved Jewish community
that is committed to being Jewish. There may be fewer than a dozen
Jews in town, but if there is anything Jewish happening, everyone is
there to support it.
We sometimes have to be creative in how we bring the services of
a rabbi or cantor to an isolated community. Each week I write a
bima
-
ready
d’var Torah
that is sent by e-mail and is available on our web
site,
For some communities that have lay readers for
Shabbat
services, this means the difference between having a
d’var
Torah
at services or not.
I have used other computer technology as well. I had a student
who became a
bar mitzvah
last summer at United Hebrew Congrega-
tion in Fort Smith, AR. He had a tutor in Fort Smith who worked with
him on his
Torah
portion, his
Haftarah
portion, and his prayers.
He studied with me weekly by web-cam. It was a little strange at first,
but we soon settled into our routine and figured out the technology.
When I spoke with a friend of mine, who runs a very large religious
school in New Jersey, about my technological tutoring, her immedi-
ate response was, “Well of course, you’ll see him a couple of times
in person before August.” I had to explain that I wasn’t counting on
seeing him in person at all before the
Shabbat
he became a
bar mitz-
vah
.
As it happened, I was wrong. He and his mom went to Space
Camp in Huntsville, AL, for Spring Break and we were able to get
together at the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience for a
tutoring session.
Some of the work that I do for the Institute isn’t as specific as
leading
Shabbat
or holiday services for a congregation. Some of what
I do is for the surrounding community, representing both the Institute
and the Jewish people.
I have had the honor of being invited to participate in interfaith
sunrise services on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf
Coast. When the University of Louisiana at Monroe asked the Jewish
community for someone to sit in on an interfaith panel about the
Book of Job, they were able to call on me to represent a Jewish view-
point. As part of the Mississippi Coalition for Racial Justice, I stood on
the steps of the State Capital and gave an invocation for the ceremony
kicking off “The Welcome Table,” a year-long program promoting
dialogue on race in Mississippi. When a company that operates tow-
boats on the Mississippi River wanted to name its newest vessel for
the patriarch of a Jewish family in town, I was invited to participate
in the launch of the MV David Solomon (and steer it as well!).
Then there was the unusual unveiling in Brookhaven, MS, for
Mr. Elias Bowsky, 1848 – 1896. I received a call from the Sons of
Confederate Veterans in Brookhaven asking if I would help with the
dedication of a marker for a Jewish Confederate soldier as well as an-
other memorial that had been created by the brother of the deceased
for the remains of 23 unidentified Confederate soldiers. This wasn’t
anything that I could have expected before coming to Mississippi.
We made arrangements for the details of the service. I also invited
Rabbi Eric Wisnia of Congregation Beth Chaim of Princeton Junc-
tion, NJ, to assist me. Rabbi Wisnia is a colleague, a friend, and a Civil
War buff since the fifth grade. He sent me “The Prayer of the Con-
federate States Soldier” by Rev. M. J. Michelbacher, Minister of the
Hebrew Congregation, “House of Love,” Richmond, VA, which was
carried by Jewish Confederate Soldiers during the war, to include in
the unveiling service.
The Circuit-Riding
Rabbi of The South
Garrett Kuna with Rabbi Batsheva Appel
Rabbi Batsheva Appel, N ’96
Former Director of Rabbinic Services,
Goldring/Woldenberg Institute
of Southern Jewish Life
