Hello al

all

Denise FreedmanDenise has served in USCJ synagogue lay leadership throughout most of her adult life. She served on varying committees on the Board of Trustees in Gainesville, Florida for many years and then has been serving at Congregation Kol Ami in Tampa Florida for 19 years. Denise served for several years on the Kol Ami executive committee then in 2009-2011 Denise was Congregational President.In addition to her regular and diverse service efforts, in her early Kol Ami years Denise was a member of 2 search committees, including a Rabbi search and a Cantor search.Denise is in the unique position to subsequently twice chair successful congregational rabbinical search committees at Kol Ami.The first was for an interim Rabbi in 2017 and the second for the Long-Term Rabbi search committee culminating in August 2019.

Elisa RosmanElisa serves on the board of directors of Congregation Etz Hayim in Arlington VA. She is co-chair of the education committee.She was a co-chair of the synagogue’s rabbinic search committee from December 2019 – July 2020. Prior to that, she had participated in two education director searches, once as a member of the search committee and once as the chairperson.Their new rabbi was hired this spring and will begin as soon as his immigration paperwork clears.Michael TarloweMichael is a member of the board at Herzl-Ner Tamid, a large synagogue in Mercer Island, WA – a suburb of Seattle.The work of the senior rabbi search committee which he chaired began in the fall 2018 with the formation of committee and visioning work, even though the synagogue didn't post job with the RA until nearly a year later, in October 2019. Although his most recent experience was his first time as a search committee chairperson, he had previously served on two assistant rabbi search committees at the same shul.

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reminder to post questions here

If you had enough lead time with your existing rabbi, would you have gone the interim route? What were the benefits of doing this?

For the synagogue who had a second year process, was there anything you did different in year 2 than in year 1 you found to be beneficial in the end

how were the Search Committees structured? How large were the committees and did you involve more members of congregation

To Sheri's question: We had 12 members. 1/3 of them were board members, others were not. We involved other members of the congregation in a variety of ways during our in-person and virtual interview visits, and we surveyed everyone.

How do you keep the congregation satisfied with an interim rabbi. What are best traits for an interim rabbi?

We had 10 members, 3 of which were Board members.

To Sheri's question, we have a small committee of 7 to do the heavy lifting, plus an advisory panel of 15 with broad representation.

Please post the link to last week’s webinar.

How can you best conduct due diligence on why a rabbi is leaving his or her former position?

Recording from last week's webinar on intro to Rabbinic Search: https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/v9Z0NbLusV1LZdaK5VzQA7VmIMfveaa81ihMqfcNygjsH5dT05silwTVVdW5LLg

Natalie Roisman is co-chair of the 2020 Rabbinic Search Committee (now Transition Committee) at Congregation Etz Hayim in Arlington, Virginia, where she previously has served on the Board, as VP Education, as First VP, and as a member of a two search committees for the position of Education Director.

Can Michael share the promotional video

Any experience out there on how to deal with visits during COVID in light of the fact that congregants want to see the candidates in person?

Barry, when our first round did not yield a rabbi, the board committed to the possibility of hiring a rabbi without meeting them in person.

We created many Zoom opportunities, which Elisa and I can discuss in more detail.

This was in the March-June time period, so people were not flying or otherwise traveling; if we insisted on in-person, we likely would not have been able to hire a rabbi this year.

@Alex, here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YkWZJ2H2ac

TY

we will send the chat with links to everyone

How large is Denise’s congregation?

about 300

Did you lose any members (Denise) when you had to move to having another year for the search?

Did you find a tendency for folks to either stress in the search the qualities they liked in the former Rabbi or stress the qualities in which the former Rabbi was weak, and if so how did you try to guard against that so candidates could be judged on their own merits?

I ‘m interested in hearing about interviewing candidates during COVID.

Will you send out the deck?

I would also like to hear about interviewing during COVID

Thanks to all the participants for a really informative evening!!!

Thank you all for your time!

Thank you

Thank you! Very helpful

We would also like to hear about interviewing and visits during covid..could there be another session focusing on that?

Thanks you!

Well done, thank you!

This has been very informative. Thanks for this and especially to the panelists!

That would be great!

Thank you for these very helpful and informative sessions.

A season COVID interview would be great

Thank you so much. Incredibly helpful. Thanks for the session on zoom interviewin