By Diana Brement, Jewish Sound Columnist
Think of it as a Bar or Bat Mitzvah of sorts: This Sunday, Rabbi Jay and Janine Rosenbaum of Mercer Island’s Herzl-Ner Tamid Conservative Congregation will be honored for 13 years of service at the congregation’s Legacy Brunch.
“In our tradition we look at a week, a day, a year,” says the rabbi, and “sometimes we [get to] look at bigger chunks of time.”
The celebration comes at a “crossroads” for the American Jewish community, as well as our own.
“There’s a lot of churning, a lot of soul searching…causing both anxiety and excitement,” Jay says, with the challenge of showing younger Jews especially that Judaism “adds something meaningful to our lives.”
Not wanting to give away his talk, the rabbi promises “highlights of the last 13 years…and how we can move on to the next level.”
Known for his passion for movies and TV — “Tremé,” “The Wire” and “The Americans” are some current favorite shows — but “I used to be a big fan of ‘Northern Exposure,’” he says. It’s Ed from that series who said movies are “the American way” of storytelling, and Jay concurs.
“I listen to people’s stories all day long,” he says. “I’m always fascinated by people’s stories.”
Janine, who grew up Janine Guttman in Seattle’s Seward Park neighborhood, repeatedly stressed how lucky she is.
“I always wanted to come back here,” she says. “Not every rabbi’s wife gets to come back to where they’re from. It’s a huge plus” to be close to family and long-time friends and to make new friends at Herzl, which “feels like family.”
Becoming Seattle Hebrew Academy’s librarian on her return, she worked there for 11 years, retiring in 2013. She also has a private tutoring company called Helping Hand.
Rabbinic spouses today “want to have their own identity,” she observes, and “not only be involved in the life of the synagogue,” but have a professional life. She’s achieved that balance with her work and the Hebrew classes she teaches at Herzl.
“I’m able to find that piece [of synagogue life] that lets me connect with people in my own way,” she says.
While Janine is not speaking at the brunch, the Rosenbaums’ son David and daughter Shani will be on hand to say a few words.
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The hook for this story was supposed to be, how did a nice Jewish girl come to teach Hebrew Bible at a Jesuit University?
But that proved the easy part.
Seattle University wanted someone “who would teach Bible from a Jewish perspective,” says Professor Bea Lawrence, assistant professor of theology and religious studies there. The Jesuits are committed to the integrity of the text and the first thing she does is explain to her mostly Christian students that Torah is “different than the Old Testament.”
More interesting is the arc of Bea’s story from growing up in Moscow, Idaho, a community distinctly lacking in Jews, to teaching the essence of Judaism.
Bea’s parents, East Coast natives, met in grad school and “thought it would be fun” to teach at the University of Idaho for a few years — which turned into 46. And while there’s a small congregation there now, back then there was none.
“My mother had taught Hebrew school,” and “tried very hard to teach me and my sister,” who were “thoroughly uninterested,” says Bea, who arrived at Carleton College as an undergraduate knowing nothing outside of the Hanukkah blessings.
A political science major intending to go to law school, she “accidently [took] a class in Hebrew Bible,” and remembers the day her studies changed course.
“It was the day I realized…I could call myself a Jew even though I didn’t know anything; that I’d never been to a synagogue,” she says. “That just made me voraciously curious.”
Bea majored in religion, then started rabbinic training, but realized “that I would make an awful rabbi,” as a “thin-skinned” type whose “own theology is not very comforting.”
She took her master’s and doctorate at Emory University, then taught at the Hebrew Union College in L.A. The need for a lifestyle change brought her and daughters Ellie, 9, and Abby, 6, to Seattle in 2010. She likes the city and her work.
“I’m very happy,” she says. “It’s very different than teaching rabbinical students.” She’s even written, with the approval of the school, an article critiquing “dominant Christian approaches to Judaism,” which appeared in the online journal “Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations” last year.
In a turnabout, Bea now leads High Holiday services each year at Moscow’s Jewish Community of the Palouse, which also serves Pullman, Wash. She recently joined Temple Beth Am in Northeast Seattle, where she will be teaching a three-part class on gender and sex in the Torah in May and June.
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Short Takes: Margie Kaiz Offer has been elected to the board of American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Her late husband, Dr. Daniel Offer, fled Berlin for Palestine during Hitler’s rise and served in the Palmach unit that liberated Beer-Sheva. When Daniel died in 2013, Margie established a memorial endowment fund that supports BGU’s adolescent medical research. A medical researcher, she and Daniel co-wrote two books, including “Regular Guys: 34 Years Beyond Adolescence.”