Overview

Serve as spiritual leader for Temple Israel (TI) in all aspects of this capacity.

  1. Provide leadership for egalitarian conservative religious services
    1. Shabbatot and Holidays (coordinate with lay daveners)
    2. Weekday (to extent scheduled) and shiva minyans
    3. Simchot (weddings, b’nai mitzvot, etc.)
    4. Funerals
  2. Provide Pastoral service
    1. Counsel bereaved and other members needing rabbinic counseling
    2. Visit ill and elderly members in local hospitals, nursing homes, or private homes
    3. Guide the TI Caring Community (lay persons fulfilling this mitzvah)
  3. Provide halachic guidance and authority
    1. Kashrut policy for TI kosher kitchens and premises
    2. Jewish practices in and out of synagogue
    3. Relationships with and services to interfaith and LGBT  participants and spouses
    4. Synagogue events, calendar, etc.
  4. Provide leadership to TI Jewish education
    1. Oversight and guidance to TI Hebrew School (volunteer director)
    2. Teach/organize Adult Education program(s)
    3. Teach/counsel b’nai mitzvah students
    4. Coordinate with Hillel Academy (Hebrew Day School on TI premises)
  5. Provide community outreach
    1. Engage/attract unaffiliated potential members in local university and general community
    2. Maintain constructive relationships with local Jewish organizations
    3. Engender spirit and practices of Tikkun Olam
    4. Foster connections with local interfaith community
Timing Expectations: Full-time pulpit rabbi, could be supplemented by teaching at local University or Hillel Day School.
Rabbi Qualifications: TI has not yet addressed the matter of interfaith or LGBT marriages, however we do have LGBT members and several members with non-Jewish spouses have leadership roles.
Community Description:

Established in 1886, Temple Israel (TI) is an egalitarian conservative synagogue of 165 member units which recently built a new building after a natural disaster, and is currently not affiliated with USCJ. The local Jewish community includes 3 synagogues (Orthodox, Conservative-TI, and Reform), as well as a top-rated Chabad Center, a Jewish Community Center, Jewish Federation, Jewish Family Service, and local chapters of other Jewish organizations.
Vestal is a suburban upstate New York community with various industries, excellent public schools, affordable housing, and a university with growing enrollment of 17,000 students, 27% of whom are Jewish. The general population shrank considerably in the industrial decline of the 1980s and 1990s, but in recent years the growing health care industry and thriving State University of New York at Binghamton have breathed new life into the area, and the large population of Jewish students and faculty represent great potential.

Work Remotely: no
Qualifications:

A Jewish Rabbi trained in Conservative practice; with inclusive egalitarian orientation; ordained by a recognized seminary: JTS, AJR, HCB, etc.; with a combination of education and experience demonstrating that he or she is:

  1. A knowledgeable, motivating spiritual leader and speaker
  2. A sensitive provider of sound advice and counseling
  3. A competent educator of adults and children
  4. Capable of providing practical 21st-century application of Jewish laws and customs
  5. A leader likely to attract the next generation of TI membership and leadership
Position Start Date: June 1, 2017
Benefits:

Salary is a total compensation package. Specific payment arrangements regarding insurance, savings, etc., are flexible, as are timing of vacations & holidays.

Salary Range: up to $90,000
Send resumes and cover letter to:

Temple Israel, 4737 Deerfield Place, Vestal, NY 13850
Attn: Tammy Kunsman - titammy@stny.twcbc.com
(office administrator);
Copies to (search committee):
Ben Kasper - broome74@aol.com
Art Siegel - arthur.siegel@gmail.com