By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer
After more than a year and a half without a rabbi, Beth Jacob Congregation has announced that Rabbi Adam Rosenthal of Cincinnati will serve as its rabbi-in-residence for three weekends in February, March and April.

“We decided to start with three months, and then review,” said Helen Halcomb, chair of Beth Jacob’s rabbi search committee and secretary of the Beth Jacob board. “I’m excited because we’ve gone through — how many years without anybody? And it’s a huge burden on the religious committee to conduct services on a regular basis.”

For the first program, Rosenthal will lead Shabbat services on Friday evening, Feb. 27 followed by a catered dinner. Rosenthal will also lead Shabbat services on Saturday, Feb. 28 beginning at 9:30 a.m. followed by a kiddush lunch and a class.

The rabbi will return to Beth Jacob over the weekends of March 27-28 and April 24-25.

Beth Jacob is not affiliated with a particular Jewish movement but identifies itself as Traditional in practice, a non-egalitarian movement to the religious left of Orthodoxy but to the right of egalitarian Conservative Judaism.

Although only men lead services at Beth Jacob and count toward a minyan — a quorum for public prayers — there is mixed seating, a practice not permissible in Orthodox congregations.

According to Halcomb, it has been a challenge to find rabbis willing to lead the synagogue’s Traditional services.

Rosenthal, whose father is a Conservative rabbi, grew up mainly in Southern California. He received his Conservative rabbinic ordination in 2007 from the Jewish Theological Seminary and is now pursuing his Ph.D. in medieval Jewish history and literature at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the seminary of the Reform movement, in Cincinnati.

He also teaches undergraduate classes at the University of Dayton; in the fall he taught Introduction to Judaism, and now teaches two sections of a Holocaust course.

“I know they’ve been looking off and on for a rabbi for a couple of years,” Rosenthal said of Beth Jacob. “I spoke to them a few years ago because people in Cincinnati had told me, ‘You’d be perfect for the job, given your own religious proclivities.’ I’m traditional but liberal. I’m flexible.”

Rosenthal said it didn’t work out then because Beth Jacob sought a full-time rabbi. When Halcomb approached him recently, he offered to help out on a limited basis.

“It seems it’s a mutually-agreeable plan for now,” said Rosenthal, who will lead services at Beth Jacob in accordance with Traditional practice.

He said he’s comfortable attending Reform and Conservative services on occasion in Cincinnati but “the majority of the time, on Shabbat and holidays, we go to a modern Orthodox synagogue. We’re kind of all over the map, and my family’s comfortable with that.”

Halcomb described the move as taking baby steps, “because everybody has to make sure it’s a good thing to do.”

Since 2011, Beth Jacob has only had one year with a rabbi leading programs and services.

Rabbi Hillel Fox took a one-year sabbatical from July 2011 to 2012. At the end of the sabbatical, the board didn’t renew his 10-year contract. Fox was followed by Rabbi Martin Applebaum, whose one-year contract also wasn’t renewed.

Then, after little more than a week at the synagogue, in August 2013, Beth Jacob’s officers dismissed Rabbi Martin Shorr before he could sign a planned one-year contract.

Shorr has filed a lawsuit in Montgomery County against his previous employer, Temple Hadar Israel in New Castle, Pa., and Hadar Israel Board Member Bruce Waldman, claiming they interfered with his contract and employment at Beth Jacob. Unless it is settled or dismissed, the trial is set for June 22.

After Beth Jacob’s officers resigned en masse at the end of 2013, Joe Litvin stepped up to serve a one-year term as Beth Jacob’s president for 2014. Litvin has now completed that term.

Halcomb said no one has agreed to serve as Beth Jacob’s next board president yet.

To read the complete February 2015 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.