By Diana Brement,
JTNews Columnist
Rabbi Harry Zeitlin is one of those multi-faceted, multi-talented people — photographer, musician, composer, plus he runs a small teaching synagogue, Beit Ha’Ari. Located above a small suite of offices in Seattle’s Wedgwood, we met there for a widely digressing interview earlier this month.
“As you can see from the mess on the table…most of my teaching is one-on-one or on the Internet,” he said, explaining the book-covered table that occupies one of the synagogue’s two open rooms.
Harry came to the rabbinate circuitously, but then, he would say it’s all about the path. Growing up in Denver, “I went to the Orthodox day school, went to the Orthodox shul, but we were far from the “˜frum-est’ family in Denver.”
Always interested in learning, he still drifted away from religion as a young adult. He began circling back when he studied with the late Rabbi Shloime Twerski, from the well-known family of Hassidic teachers, in the late 1960s and 70s. Still, he said, “I didn’t want to be involved in something that said you can’t have fun.”
Already a bluegrass banjo and guitar player in high school, he got interested in jazz guitar at Yale, even studying with Larry Coryell for a while. He learned filmmaking and wanted to be a musician, but “my mother was always pushing me to be a rabbi.”
There was a little problem, though: Harry had stopped believing in God. Living in L.A. at the time, he encountered a 16th-century book, The Book of Divine Power, by the Maharal of Prague (of Golem fame), who turned out to be a distant relative. “I decided to see what my great-great uncle had to say,” which was, “only God is perfect so everything else is, necessarily, not perfect.” This answered many of his questions.
He started going to shul on the Venice boardwalk where Rabbi Daniel Lapin, now of Mercer Island, was serving. In the company of other artists and writers, “I started becoming interested in becoming observant again.”
Moving to Jerusalem, Harry bounced around “most of the American-oriented yeshivot,” but didn’t find the right teacher until he met Nissan Applebaum from a local Kollel (school). “He brought me to this place where the Gemara [commentary section of the Talmud] is now my favorite activity,” he said.
Smicha — ordination — still eluded him as he struggled with issues around halachah. By 1989 he was in Seattle, working as a professional photographer and raising a family — four kids now ages 17 to 24.
When his mother became ill at the end of her life, he decided to fulfill her wish. He finished his studies with Rabbi Avrohom David at the Seattle Kollel, was ordained by the American Board of Rabbis, finally becoming the rabbi his mother always dreamed of.
Still an avid photographer, he’s just had works in two exhibits in Colorado and has photos on semi-permanent exhibit at the Seattle Kollel. He’s also returned to composing music.
He says his photography is “totally secular,” but then, “nothing I do is totally secular,” he said. “My work is not Jewish subject matter, it’s the underlying feeling and spirit behind it.”
Harry favors nature photography, but likes to trick the eye with the natural image, creating “natural abstracts” in nature. “There’s this energy,” that he tries to capture, “that animates everything in the universe.”
Find his work at www.harryzeitlin.com, hear music at www.myspace.com/harryzeitlin and contact him about Beth Ha’Ari through www.congregationbethhaari.org.
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I hope you’ve been partying, because it is gala season in the Jewish community.
Some of these galas are also opportunities to honor people who have enhanced the lives of local organization.
Seattle Hebrew Academy honored Connie Kanter and Chuck Broches last month. Parents and active volunteers, Connie was also the school’s development director for a number of years before returning to corporate life.
Head of school Rivy Poupko Kletenik, calls them “models for the Jewish community in their dedication, commitment and cheerful bigheartedness,” noted for committee work, hospitality and generosity. Connie and Chuck are also very involved in the Jewish community as a whole.
Mercer Island’s Congregation Herzl-Ner Tamid honored Bob Zimmerman on Feb. 6. A teacher of adults and children for 39 years, service leader and torah reader, Rabbi Jay Rosenbaum says that with his “great spirit” and “tremendous warmth,” Bob “exemplifies the best of what we want to be at Herzl-Ner Tamid.
“A fantastic guy, a wonderful person, a great teacher…when people walk into his classes or his minyan, whether it’s a student who’s 15 or 12, or an adult…Bob lends a personal touch…makes everyone feel enthusiastically welcome,” Rabbi Rosenbaum said.
Peg Hall and Moss Patashnik high-wheelin’ it.
Seattle Jewish Community School will honor two couples at their Purim-themed gala Feb. 28. Dr. Peg Hall and Moss Patashnik, and Joann and Carl Bianco are long-time supporters of the north-end school.
Debbie Butler, head of school, welcomes the opportunity to say thank you to people “who have made such an impact on our present and our future.” Despite the fact that their daughter hasn’t been at the school for almost eight years, Moss and Peg have turned “deep parental involvement into an ongoing commitment,” Butler said, “because they believe in us as a vital, community-wide asset.”
The Biancos have never had kids at the school, but their “longstanding passion for Jewish education,” Butler said, motivated them to help the school financially at a crucial time, allowing SJCS to be “transformed…from a nomadic school to a permanent institution that will have a profound and ongoing impact” on the community.