Welcome to Temple Beth Shalom

Meet Our Rabbis

Rabbi Howard L. Apothaker, Ph.D.

Rabbi Howard L. Apothaker, Ph.D. has served as Rabbi for Temple Beth Shalom of Columbus/New Albany, Ohio since 1980. As a student rabbi, he served congregations in New York City. He has also served a start-up congregation in Beer Sheva, Israel.

A native Philadelphian and honors graduate of Brown University (1974), Rabbi Apothaker was ordained at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (NY, 1980). He holds an M.A. (HUC-JIR, NY, 1977) and a Ph.D. in Rabbinic Literature (HUC-JIR, Cincinnati, 1996). He has been a Visiting Graduate Student at New York University, The Jewish Theological Seminary in Jerusalem and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has won numerous academic fellowships, including the Daniel Jeremy Silver Fellowship at Harvard University (1999-2000). He has served as an adjunct instructor at Capital University and The Ohio State University and has lectured, inter alia, at Franklin University, Otterbein College, Ohio Dominican University, and Mt. Vernon Nazarene University. He has written a book on classical rabbinic midrash -Sifra, Dibbura de Sinai: Rhetorical Formulae, Literary Structures, and Legal Traditions (Hebrew Union College Press, 2000), has published numerous scholarly articles, and has lectured at a variety of academic conferences.

Rabbi Apothaker currently serves as co-president of B.R.E.A.D., a faith-based justice coalition. He has served as president of the Columbus Board of Rabbis and on numerous local boards, including Columbus Torah Academy, Columbus Jewish Federation, Leo Yassenoff Jewish Community Center, Jewish Family Services, Wexner Heritage Village, Jewish Scouting of Central Ohio, Columbus Jewish Historical Society, Jewish National Fund, Ohio Holocaust Education Council, and Central Ohio State of Israel Bonds.

Rabbi Apothaker has also served on the Board of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, for which he has also served on a number of national committees, including the Committee on Reform Jewish Principles (1999). He has served as president of the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley Association of Reform Rabbis.

In addition to congregational and Jewish community activities, Rabbi Apothaker was the founding president of the Interfaith Association of Central Ohio and the local chapter of Children in Grief. He is a founder of the Congregational Alliance of New Albany (where he has served as president). Rabbi Apothaker has served on the faculty of the URJ regional camp, the Goldman Union Camp Institute. Among other honors, Rabbi Apothaker has received the Buckeye Boys Ranch Award in recognition of Community Accomplishments and Continuing Influence in Religion with in the Community.

Rabbi Apothaker was a college wrestler, rowed on the crew team, and still participates in a variety of athletic activities. He has composed liturgical music and enjoys singing. He is married to Marcie Golden and has two daughters, Elianna and Leah.

Rabbi Apothaker can be reached via email at drabbia@tbsohio.org.

Rabbi Benjy A. Bar-Lev, Assistant Rabbi and Director of Education

After traveling to and interviewing at some of our country’s most vibrant Reform synagogues, Rabbi Benjy A. Bar-Lev chose to come to work with Temple Beth Shalom. He is excited to be the first Assistant Rabbi at Temple Beth Shalom in its 31 year history. Rabbi Bar-Lev says of TBS that, “our creative possibilities seem endless. The congregation can be justifiably proud of the community it has created—Temple Beth Shalom is a warm, inclusive and truly dynamic place!”

Rabbi Bar-Lev was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is part of a big family of two parents, three boys, one girl, and three cats. The rest of his family is not “religious” per se, but his siblings and he were raised with a solid set of Jewish values and were always taught to treat others as they would want to be treated (the “golden rule”). He went to college at a small university in Kenosha, Wisconsin called the University of Wisconsin—Parkside. During his college years, he began working as a religious school teacher, a Hebrew teacher, Youth Director, a song-leader, and finally as Rabbinic Intern at a small synagogue in Kenosha called Beth Hillel Temple. It was in part because of his experiences at Beth Hillel that he decided five years ago to begin the journey to become a rabbi. He is also a life-long Jewish camper, and for the past fifteen summers has been a camper, counselor, program director, unit leader, administrator, and Camp Rabbi of a JCC camp called “Interlaken” in the North Woods of Wisconsin.

During his first year of Rabbinical School at HUC in Jerusalem, while taking classes, meeting various family members (more seemed to pop up each weekend), and attempting to order in Hebrew at his favorite restaurants (wasn’t always pretty), he spent time teaching song-leading to a group of teenagers from Netzer, which is the NFTY High School Youth Group equivalent in England and Australia. Upon moving to Cincinnati he became the Youth Director at Temple Sholom, a job he had for four years. During his first two years in Cincinnati he also worked as the Yeshivat Noar Coordinator. Yeshivat Noar is a 7th and 8th grade program that combines junior youth group with formal Religious School classes. He taught, coordinated, and wrote curriculum for that program. During those first years he also began teaching in the Cincinnati Reform Jewish High School and wrote lesson plans and curricula for classes there as well.

In the past two years, Rabbi Bar-Lev has served as Rabbinic Intern and Youth Director for Temple Sholom in Cincinnati. As rabbinic intern he has had an amazing opportunity to lead services weekly, to teach adult education classes, to officiate at many lifecycle events, to do extensive adult programming, to innovate worship experiences, to coordinate and advice young family and young adult groups, to do pastoral care, and to help shape the religious school. He realizes how lucky he was to have had these experiences and is thrilled to bring them to Temple Beth Shalom.

Rabbi Bar-Lev is engaged to Dr. Lauren Cantor and will be married in the spring of 2010.

Rabbi Bar-Lev can be reached via email at rabbibenjy@tbsohio.org.

 

Selected High Holy Days Sermons from Rabbi Apothaker