So far as I know, I am the only rabbi Temple Judea ever produced.  My rabbi there was Karl Weiner and I believe he had a great influence on me.  He was an advisor to me in many ways.  He inspired me to carry on his devotion to interfaith work.  In this essay I want to talk about both these things.  He deserves to be remembered as the exemplary synagogue and community leader he was.

            Of course, a part of that was my experience at OSRUI, back then known simply by its location, Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.  I am sure others will tell about his visionary role in establishing this camp.  It has a key role in my life as a person as well as as a Jew and a rabbi.

            Before Jews began migrating from Chicago to Skokie in the early 1950s, that village was largely inhabited by ethnic Germans.  Anti-Semitism was very much a part of life there.  I experienced it in the schoolyard and even in the classroom.  Karl (I hope no one will object if I refer to him by his first name) grew up in Germany and had been ordained at the famous Geiger Yeshivah in Breslau in 1938.  He had known life in the Third Reich first hand.  What was his response to what was going on in this new Jewish community?

            He told me he believed that part of what went wrong in Germany was that the Jewish community there did not engage in outreach to the Christian communities.  He made it a priority to pursue such relationships in Skokie and established the first interfaith clergy council there.  In religious school we learned Comparative Religion, which basically meant we studied Christianity. We had programs with church schools from religious school and youth group.

            This met a strong challenge in December 1961 (if I remember the date correctly).  The Village of Skokie, at the request of the interfaith council had decided not to erect the usual creche on the Village Hall lawn that year.  Unfortunately, someone on their staff had not gotten the message or, perhaps, disregarded it.  The creche was set up, but, at orders from the local government was taken down.  This resulted in an ugly, explicitly anti-Semitic protest one evening.  Karl told me that he felt he was back in the Germany of his youth.  But he persisted.  That year, by the way, Skokie was up for the All-American City award, then sponsored by Look Magazine.  Because of this incident, that award was given to another city.

            Karl met an even bigger challenge in the summer of 1977 when a group of Chicago neo-Nazis applied for a permit to hold a march and rally in Skokie.  This was probably one of the most effective publicity stunts ever devised.  It got the covers of both Time and Newsweek.  As it happened, I was in Chicago that summer and it was the universal subject of conversation, and not just among Jews.  National Jewish organizations sent in teams of professionals.  Karl complained to me that these organizations had run roughshod over his interfaith work, ignoring the local organized community.  He was very unhappy about that.  One of those professionals I talked with years later actually apologized for the way he had behaved there that summer.  There was a film made telling the story rather badly.  For one thing, all the synagogue scenes were filmed in Temple Judea, but the rabbi depicted was a young American who was basically clueless about Nazis.  So far as I know there was no such rabbi in Skokie and the actual rabbi at the synagogue was a survivor.  To indicate how truly tangled this was, the Nazi group was led by one Frankl Collin, nee Francis Cohen, who had been born in a DP camp in post WWII Europe.

Maybe all of this is too negative for some, but this writer thinks Karl should be remembered for the challenges he faced in his career.

When I was sixteen, I went on what was called a pilgrimage to the campus of Hebrew Union College with CFTY.  Then and there I decided I would become a rabbi. That decision came and went over the following years, but that year I met with Karl to talk about that.  He was very encouraging.  I remember asking him about whether I should go for an undergraduate Jewish studies degree and he told me liberal arts would be a better choice.  Congregants, he said, expect their rabbi to be well educated and able to preach about all kinds of subjects.  I followed that advice and know he was right.

In my last year of college, I again met with him to discuss becoming a rabbi.  This time his advice was different.  I should pursue ordination only if I were prepared for the downside of being on the pulpit.  He warned me about the lack of privacy for myself and my family.  He told me about people criticizing me and my family on issues large and petty.  There was more about what I should expect that would be difficult to deal with.  Over the course of my career, I have come to know that all pulpit clergy must deal with such things.  It is a stressful occupation.

I remember asking his advice on a few practical matters years later when I had my student pulpit.  I remember telling him I was having trouble getting my board to accept new ideas I had for programs.  His advice was something I followed until retirement.  He said not to go to the Board and present my idea alone.  Find a board member who likes the idea and have her present it as a good idea from the rabbi or even hers alone.  That also applies to much else in working with leaders and members. 

I am very happy to have the opportunity to memorialize a rabbi who had a profound influence on me as a rabbi, a Jew, and a person.  He left this world far too early and we should make sure such a man is not forgotten nor his example lost.  Y’hi Zikhrono Tzadik Livrakhah.