By Donna Gordon Blankinship, Editor, JTNews
There will be three new faces in community leadership this summer, when the new director of the Stroum Jewish Community Center, the new head of the Jewish Day School of Metropolitan Seattle and the new senior rabbi of Herzl-Ner Tamid Conservative Congregation arrive.
In addition to arriving around the same time, the three new leaders have a few other things in common. They are all joining organizations that have conducted a lengthy search process to find just the right person to lead their organizations and will be taking over from interim directors. All three of them will also be involved in the community effort to explore the idea of a Jewish campus at the site of the JCC on Mercer Island.
The new executive director of the JCC, Barry Sohn, is moving to the Seattle area from Akron, Ohio, where he served nine years as executive director of the Akron JCC. He has worked for 24 years as a full-time JCC professional, not including his summers as a camp counselor.
Sohn said in a telephone interview that he looks forward to building alliances between Jewish agencies and building bridges for the good of the community. He calls himself a relationship builder and a community builder. He complimented the volunteers and staff of the Stroum Jewish Community Center and said he was impressed by the work they are doing, and felt one of his main jobs would be “to get in there and tweak some things.”
Sohn said he appreciated the opportunities he had to meet with other community leaders during the JCC interview process. “I’m just looking forward to getting in there and working with people,” he said. “At this point, I wish I could start tomorrow because I’m ready.”
He and his wife, Laura, their children and their yellow Labrador retriever plan to leave Akron in early June. “I’m really excited. I can’t find anyone to tell me anything bad about Seattle.”
Not even the rain? Maybe that’s why all these new rabbis and executive directors have been invited to start in the summer.
Rabbi Elon Sunshine, who will be the new head of school at the Jewish Day School in Bellevue, laughed during a telephone interview when asked if he was concerned about the weather. Sunshine, and his wife, Shira Rosenblatt, are both from sunnier climates and can always schedule a winter break with their small children in California or Arizona.
Sunshine says the job at JDS is almost a dream come true. His family visited Seattle on vacation months before he heard about the search for a new head of school and, after falling in love with the area, even exclaimed in a family video that they should think about moving here.
Although he has been serving as a congregational rabbi at Congregation Shearith Israel in Dallas for three years, Sunshine says his goal has always been to work his way up to the job of head of a Jewish day school. He earned rabbinic ordination from the University of Judaism in Los Angeles at the same time he received his master’s degree in education. He has taught at various Jewish schools over the years and has also made a name for himself as a community leader in Dallas, where he served on the boards of a number of Jewish organizations.
He calls JDS a wonderful school that is well established. Sunshine says he has been impressed with the commitment of the faculty and administrative team and the passion of the parents and lay leaders. “Frankly, all of these things were draws for me. I wanted to come to a strong place,” he says.
“My goals are, very broadly, to strengthen the feeling of Jewish community around the enterprise of Jewish learning,” Sunshine says, adding that the school should not only serve the children but its adult community as well.
Rabbi Jay Rosenbaum thinks of his appointment as the new senior rabbi at Herzl-Ner Tamid on Mercer Island as more or less an opportunity to come home. His wife, Janine, grew up in Seward Park, and they have spent 95 percent of their vacations over the past 22 years in Seattle. Two years ago, Rosenbaum spent his sabbatical in the area. His father-in-law, Victor Guttman, makes his home in Seattle.
“Because we have such a strong connection to the city and the Jewish community, it seemed like a natural to apply. We’re happy things worked out,” says Rosenbaum, who for the past 16 years has served as rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in Worcester, Mass.
“Herzl-Ner Tamid is a great congregation. It has a very proud history. It has a diverse and very talented membership. When I was interviewing, I was impressed by the warmth of the congregation and the level of excitement that people had about doing things Jewishly together,” Rosenbaum says.
The new rabbi noted the long transition period that the congregation has experienced. “I get the feeling that there’s a wonderful sense of anticipating and people wanting to join together and do some wonderful things together,” he says.