By day, he was a stockbroker at Bear Stearns. By night, he tended to the spiritual needs of Jewish prisoners at San Quentin State Prison.
Rabbi Robert Kaiser of San Francisco died at home on Dec. 24. He was 56.
Born in Newburgh, N.Y., Kaiser graduated from John Hopkins University in 1968 and was ordained at the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati in 1973.
After serving pulpits in Lincoln, Neb., and Palm Springs, Kaiser moved to San Francisco 25 years ago.
He served as a part-time rabbi at Temple Beth Hillel in Richmond for three years, explaining in a 1986 Jewish Bulletin story that he never wanted to be a full-time rabbi.
“I like to specialize in helping congregations who cannot afford a full-time rabbi,” he said, adding that he did not join the rabbinate “to make a living.”
In 1986, the World Union for Progressive Judaism sent Kaiser to serve as guest rabbi in Antwerp, Belgium, over the High Holy Days.
In 1987, Kaiser became the Jewish chaplain at San Quentin, where he would remain for 17 years.
In a 1988 Jewish Bulletin article, Kaiser said he had learned that Jews in prison often suffer more discrimination than Jews in the outside world.
While at San Quentin, Kaiser led weekly Shabbat services, as well as twice-weekly Torah study.
“Prisoners more than others are interested in ethics, and have time to speculate on the uses and abuses of power,” he said.
In 1989, Kaiser presided over the conversion and bar mitzvah of San Quentin inmate Tony Martinez Johnson, a Mexican American who became the first-ever bar mitzvah at the prison.
“If a rabbi on the outside thinks three times before converting, a rabbi here mulls it over 10 times,” he said in 1989.
Kaiser also served as chairman of the chaplain’s committee of the Board of Rabbis of Northern California.
“He was such a unique guy,” said Nick Hodulik, director of technology at j., who met Kaiser last spring while waiting for a late MUNI bus. Both transplanted New Yorkers, they commiserated about the Bay Area’s lack of good public transportation.
They soon began having dinner once or twice a week, talking about philosophy, literature and music.
“I’d tell my friends, ‘My friend Bob is a rabbi and a stockbroker and a prison chaplain,’ and they’d go, ‘What?’ He gave me a different understanding of Judaism and contributed to my desire to convert,” said Hodulik.
Kaiser is survived by his mother, Shirley Kaiser of Boca Raton, Fla., and his brothers Richard of West Orange, N.J., and Samuel of Madison, N.J. Donations can be sent to the Board of Rabbis of Northern California, 121 Steuart St., Suite 301, S.F., CA, 94105.
A memorial service will be held at 10:30 a.m. Monday, Jan. 12, at Congregation Emanu-El, 2 Lake St., S.F.