By Joel Magalnick, Editor, The Jewish Sound
He may be retiring from his current post, but Rabbi Jim Mirel is far from finished.
“I don’t consider it the end. Death is the end. It’s a continuation,” says the longtime senior rabbi of Bellevue’s Temple B’nai Torah, who will retire at the end of June after 29 years at his pulpit. “Moving from senior rabbi to rabbi emeritus is obviously something that’s new to me and new to our congregation. It will be interesting, but I’m not totally hanging it up.”
Not totally hanging it up means continued involvement in his temple — “I’m always part of the team, and I’ll always be part of the congregation,” he says — plus he’ll be spending about 15 weeks a year in Sun Valley, Idaho, as the part-time rabbi there. But for a man who landed in Seattle right out of rabbinical school, he sees this region as home.
“I’m going to live and die in Seattle,” he says.
Mirel has never been satisfied with serving his temple and leaving it at that. From his arrival — he was an associate rabbi at Temple De Hirsch Sinai before moving to B’nai Torah — Mirel ingrained himself into Seattle’s Jewish offerings. That includes involvement in the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, Jewish Family Service, and the Caroline Kline Galland nursing home, among others. His children were in the first class of the Jewish Day School of Metropolitan Seattle, and he sees education as the primary focal point for continued growth in Jewish Seattle. He sits on the board of the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center. He also helped to launch such organizations as the Washington State Jewish Historical Society, for which he served as president early on, and Music of Remembrance, “which is keeping the Holocaust alive — the memory — through music, which is a great thing,” he says.
If there are places where people can say they know Mirel, it’s through two of his passions: Social justice and music.
The Jewish Sound was long a sponsor of one of his pet projects over the past decade: The almost-annual Hanukkah party to support MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, which provides funding to increase food security across the U.S.
“Whenever I’m able to reach out to those in need, and to lift up those who are going through challenges, I always like to be there for people, whether it be the Central American refugees, or whether the refugees are from Southeast Asia, Russian Jews from the former Soviet Union, the poor in our own community,” he says.
That desire brought controversy to his neighborhood almost a decade ago when B’nai Torah volunteered to host Tent City IV, the roving encampment of homeless people that spent a month on the temple grounds.
“I’m happy that the board decided to do it,” he said at the time, and B’nai Torah ended up hosting Tent City again three years later. TBT has also long been active in interfaith programs on the Eastside, with both Christian and Muslim groups.
When it comes to music, Mirel can still be found onstage locally with his klezmer group the Shalom Ensemble, but in the ’70s Mirel and his band the Mazel Tones took their act on the road.
“We were part of the Klezmer revival of the late ’70s, early ’80s — that was a big part of Jewish culture,” he says.
Music is a part of Mirel’s life — his wife Julie is an opera singer and his daughter Chava has released her own album — and a part of his rabbinate as well.
“I love playing music. Some people say I’m the only rabbi to play the bass on Shabbat in the congregation as part of the service,” he says. “I hope to be doing it till the day I die, playing music. Julie and I go down to the Kline Galland once a month and we sing for the residents there. Playing music at Kline Galland is just one of the things we love to do.”
Though he says he has very few regrets, Mirel can point to one event he sees as the defining moment in Seattle’s Jewish history and even his rabbinate: The shooting at the Jewish Federation in 2006. Pam Waechter, who was killed in that attack, had been a past president at Temple B’nai Torah, and a close friend of Mirel’s.
“We were privileged to have her funeral at our synagogue, because she was part of our synagogue,” Mirel says. “To see all the amazing response and the outpouring of love for her, it was certainly one of the most challenging moments for all of us, and I think we all came together.”
Temple B’nai Torah’s board decided not to offer the senior rabbi position to its longtime associate rabbi Yohanna Kinberg, so as she moves northward to Woodinville’s Congregation Kol Ami, an interim rabbi, David Lipper will keep the congregation going while it searches for its new leader. Mirel said he intentionally stayed away from the search process, but he’s sure he leaves the temple in good hands. After all, his congregants know they live in a special place.
“I always looked upon being in Seattle like being on vacation,” Mirel says. “I feel so lucky that when I think about some of my colleagues in different places, it’s not exactly paradise. And to be in Seattle for 40 years and to plan to remain here for the rest of my life, I consider that a blessing.”