By Jackson Holtz, Special to JTNews
Rabbi Bruce Kadden’s friends aren’t surprised that he wrote his rabbinic thesis about Isaac, the silent, quiet patriarch. Twenty-three years after ordination, Kadden, 49, has graying hair and a beard, wears glasses and looks the part of a rabbi. And like Isaac, Kadden is quiet and introspective, but keenly aware of what is taking place around him.
These traits will be missed in Salinas, Calif. since he departed from one Temple Beth El and moved to another – this one in Tacoma. Congregants there will quickly get to know why both Jews and non-Jews in Salinas are sad to see the man they call “my rabbi” leave.
Rabbi Kadden left his 20-year tenure to become the third rabbi to serve the largest Jewish community in the South Sound. He started on July 19, but his official installation will take place just prior to the High Holidays.
Temple Beth El, Tacoma, was founded more than 40 years ago when two separate reform and conservative communities joined. There are now over 300 families in the congregation. Kadden comes to them with abilities to address both young and old, contribute extensively to Jewish education, help to attract new members and fulfill the duties of a pulpit rabbi.
After conducting a nine-month nationwide search, the synagogue found that Rabbi Kadden fit their needs; the search committee voted unanimously for him.
“We felt he was the best match for the congregation,” said Glenn Lasko, the president of Temple Beth El’s board.
“Temple Beth El has a wonderful opportunity to learn and grow with a rabbi who has a different style,” said Rabbi David Fine, regional director of the Union for Reform Judaism, differentiating Kadden from Rabbis Richard Rosenthal and Mark Glickman, the two previous rabbis at Beth El. Rosenthal retired after 40 years and Glickman, who joined the congregation in 1997, is moving on following a sabbatical to pursue other interests. “Rabbi Kadden brings something wonderful from each of their strengths and styles.”
Rabbi Kadden has long planned to move to a new synagogue community after his younger child, Micah, 18, graduated from high school – which he did this June. Micah will attend UCLA in the fall. Kadden’s older child, Alanah, 22, graduated from UCLA this year and plans to work for the John Kerry campaign.
Kadden was attracted to the temple in Tacoma for many reasons. Temple Beth El in Tacoma is similar to Rabbi Kadden’s former post – the synagogues share the same name and a similar congregational makeup comprised of Reform Jews and Jews from Conservative and Orthodox backgrounds united in one community. Both synagogues are the primary source for Jewish life in their areas, and both are relatively small – although Tacoma’s Beth El is three times the size its Salinas counterpart. The larger size is part of what attracted Rabbi Kadden.
“I wasn’t dissatisfied in Salinas,” said Kadden, but he is looking forward to the career challenges that come with a larger congregation and staff.
Rabbi Kadden was inspired during high school to become a rabbi by Rabbi Samuel Broude at Temple Sinai in Oakland, Calif. Rabbi Broude, although retired from his post, will install Kadden this fall.
Kadden graduated from Stanford University and then pursued his rabbinic studies at Hebrew Union College, the Reform seminary.
After ordination, Kadden served for three years at Mount Zion Temple in St. Paul, Minn. From there he went to Salinas, raised his children and served the community. Rabbi Kadden believes that connecting to the community, both Jewish and non-Jewish, is an important part of his role and plans to establish similar connections in Tacoma.
In Salinas, he was president of the board of the Franciscan Workers of Junipero Serra, president of the Salinas Ministerial Association, the Jewish chaplain at the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad, Calif. and taught at several regional conferences.
“One of the key things about Bruce is that he’s an educator,” said Rabbi Harley Karz-Wagman of Temple Beth Or in Everett, who attended seminary with Kadden. “Obviously he’s had some help from who he’s married to.”
Kadden’s wife of 25 years, Barbara Binder Kadden, also 49, has two Master’s degrees and an honorary doctorate in Jewish education from the Hebrew Union College. The couple met while both were studying in Jerusalem. Prior to the move to Tacoma, she was the regional educator for the URJ’s central Western division and has co-authored books on Jewish education with her husband. While she plans to stay involved in Jewish education, her immediate plans are more artistic: Jewish quilting.
For his part, Rabbi Kadden plans to spend his first months getting to know the congregation and introducing some of the programs he developed in Salinas. In particular, he hopes to teach his interfaith Bible studies classes.
“People found that they became very much more active in their own tradition,” Kadden said, describing the result of the classes he’s taught. “The core group who have been in the classes for many years formed a personal link that otherwise might not have happened with people from different religious groups.”
One participant, Reverend Wayne Martin, the chaplain at a Monterey County hospice and a colleague of Kadden’s, said the class “unintentionally made the Christians a bit more Jewish and the Jews a bit more Christian” and unified the community.
Martin went on to describe Kadden by telling an old Hasidic tale. In the story, the villagers have gathered and are waiting for the rabbi to come recite the Kol Nidre prayers. After waiting a long time, one of the women leaves to check on her infant. She finds the rabbi in her home holding the child. The rabbi, having heard the child distressed, went in and offered the Kol Nidre prayers as comfort for the child.
“That’s the kind of rabbi Bruce Kadden is,” Martin said. “He’s the rabbi who stops.”