‘It’s the holiest of our times’
New rabbis, newly engaged, find job and challenges
“We’re a very resilient and resourceful group. So now we have a full-time rabbi again, and we’re very excited about it.” Peter Rotter spokesman and past president of the Mount Sinai congregation
WAUSAU - The job market for rabbis already was lean even before the COVID-19 pandemic upended the world.
And when Benjamin Altshuler and Natalie Louise Shribman — newly ordained rabbis and newly engaged to be married — started looking for positions in earnest in the spring, the economic and social toll of the coronavirus had hit hard and taken root. They had just finished studies at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati and were ordained as rabbis in May. They knew they faced a steep challenge for both of them to find jobs in a place where they could be together.
A long-distance relationship “was never the plan,” Altshuler said. “We were trying as best we could to find two opportunities that, if they were not in the exact same place, would be in some place where we could meet in the middle.”
It seemed almost impossible for a while. The couple would get their hopes up more than once as opportunities arose then fell from their grasps as employers decided to not fill positions or other roadblocks arose. Then, on the suggestion of a classmate, Altshuler gave a small Wausau congregation of about 80 families a call.
Now Altshuler, 29, is the rabbi of Mount Sinai Congregation. The Wausau synagogue draws Jewish faithful from a large chunk of north and central Wisconsin, from Stevens Point, Marshfield and Wisconsin Rapids to the south and west to Minoqua and Rhinelander to the north and east.
Shribman, 28, is a part-time rabbi (who serves mainly through Zoom) for a synagogue in Dubuque, Iowa, and fulltime chaplain resident for the Mayo Clinic Health System hospital in Eau Claire.
It’s not an ideal situation. Shribman largely stays in Eau Claire during the week, and there’s a lot of driving back and forth to their Wausau-area home. And COVID-19 is still wreaking havoc on daily lives, so they can’t form the faceto-face, personal relationships that they envisioned as they studied to be rabbis. But it works.
And they are grateful to be doing work for which they have a passion as they celebrate the Jewish High Holidays for the first time as rabbis.
The congregants of Mount Sinai are grateful, too, said Peter Rotter, spokesman and past president of the congregation.
The congregation essentially has been searching for a full-time, professional leader since 2017, when Rabbi Dan Danson and his wife, Dr. Julie Luks, moved from the Wausau area to Philadelphia, where Luks had accepted a position as an OB-GYN hospitalist.
Danson had been the rabbi for Mount Sinai since 1988, and he was loved and respected both inside and outside the congregation. After he left, Mount Sinai Congregation hired Rabbi Yael Dadoun as an interim rabbi while she was still a student at Hebrew Union College. Dadoun was the classmate who urged Altshuler to call the Wausau synagogue.
That lasted about a year, then the congregation hired another rabbi who was nearing the end of his career, and that lasted about a year, too.
Lay leaders and another part-time rabbi filled in until Altshuler took the position on July 1.
“We’re a very resilient and resourceful group,” Rotter said. “So now we have a full-time rabbi again, and we’re very excited about it.”
Mount Sinai has had some difficulties in general in attracting interest from young and ambitious rabbis.
“For one thing, we’re fly-over territory, right?” Rotter said. “It’s difficult under the best of circumstances to attract rabbis to the Midwest from the East Coast and the West Coast. Those are kind of the plums.”
One reason Altshuler and Mount Sinai seem suited for each other is that Mount Sinai, and Danson, played a role in Altshuler’s decision to become a rabbi. He grew up in Barrington, Illinois, a suburb northwest of Chicago, and went to a Jewish religious summer camp in Oconomowoc.
Danson also taught at that camp, and the two got to know each other. Altshuler also got to know fellow campers from Mount Sinai as well. All that helped lead the young Altshuler down the rabbinical path.
“I got to know Rabbi Danson and his family. That was probably the first time I heard about Wausau,” Altshuler said.
The camp helped him meet “rabbis and cantors and educators that I would not have had the chance to meet otherwise, and to see many different ways of living out a Jewish professional life . ... (Being) exposed to many allowed me to see there’s a really true diversity within Jewish clergy that I grew to appreciate and longed to emulate.”
Shribman grew up in Pittsburgh the daughter of a Jewish father and Catholic mother. Her Jewish faith deepened when she was preteen, after the death of her paternal grandfather, and she experienced the warmth of the Jewish community in a time of loss.
She said she decided to become a rabbi to exemplify a kind of diversity in the field. She also enjoys working in a hospital setting and working with leaders of different faiths.
“One of my goals has always been to work in an interfaith environment,” Shribman said.
Shribman said she’s only been on her job as a hospital chaplain for a short time, and she has only begun to learn.
“There is a lot of sadness from the patients, but I really find it to be a privilege and an honor,” Shribman said. “I find being part of these (health-related) conversations is very special to me . ... I feel privileged they’ve chosen me to listen to them.”
Shribman said she finds the chaplain position appealing because it expands beyond most people’s initial notions of what a rabbi is.
“That is something I am enjoying. The word rabbi and the profession has many different dimensions,” she said.
Meanwhile, Althsuler is offering services through Zoom, and meeting with congregation members in person on a limited basis.
He’s just completed services for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and time when Jewish people look back at the past year and determine ways to better themselves in the year ahead.
Yom Kippur begins at sundown Sunday, and it’s a more solemn holiday, Althuler said, which also incorporates self-reflection, apologies and future resolutions.
“It’s the holiest of our times,” Althsuler said. “And now we have a formal opportunity to stop and reflect and think about all the factors that led us to where we are now. (It) motivates an important next step, which is action. Which is, how do you take everything that has happened and funnel it into pursuing social justice, and being an informed citizen and being a wise consumer of media?”
In spite of the difficulties facing everyone, Altshuler is optimistic as he contemplates his, his congregation’s and the world’s future.
“I am hopeful. I believe there will be an end to this viral epidemic. I believe there will be an end to at least the obvious examples of hatred that seem to be ruling the current climate,” Altshuler said.
“I’m hopeful because I’ve seen so much positivity,” he said. “I’ve seen so many examples of people creating art and music and I’ve seen youth activists called to make their young voices heard. And if it’s those voices that will lead us tomorrow, then we’ll be better for it. It may not improve immediately, but I think we’re taking small steps toward a greater end.”
Contact Keith Uhlig at 715-845-0651 or kuhlig@gannett.com. Follow him at @UhligK on Twitter and Instagram or on Facebook.