If nothing else, in the last 20 years, Congregation Rodef Sholom has learned how to throw a proper anniversary celebration.
A sepia-toned clipping unearthed from j.’s files reveals that Marin’s first synagogue marked its 30th year in 1986 with a self-described “low-key affair” honoring the Reform synagogue’s first 16 board presidents and emblazoned with the title “From Sidney to Jeffrey: 30 Years at Rodef Sholom.”
This year — its 50th — Rodef Sholom has decided not to go “low-key.”
Last weekend, the synagogue kicked off the start of a yearlong celebration, with three concerts featuring artist-in-residence Danny Maseng. Future events include feasts, singalongs and 50 menorahs blazing next Chanukah.
Abe Froman still can’t quite believe it. He’s been a member since day one, and is one of the smiling men wearing a suit and tie and brandishing a shovel in Rodef’s groundbreaking shot. He still remembers a group of 25 or so Jewish families coming together and holding meetings in the old JCC building and celebrating High Holy Days in local Jewish-owned movie theaters. “Sidney,” in fact, was Sidney Braverman, Froman’s father-in-law.
“It’s a home, a home you can come back to. We’ve had three, four generations go through the system. My children went to Sunday school and three or four of my grandchildren have been bar mitzvahed there,” said Froman, 76, of San Anselmo.
Starting small in 1956, Rodef Sholom was able to build its current home within a few years on land in San Rafael donated by a congregant. By the time Rabbi Michael Barenbaum was hired on in the late 1970s, the congregation had grown to roughly 360 member families. When he retired two and a half years ago, that total was over 1,000 — and is up to 1,100 today.
During Barenbaum’s 27 years, Rodef Sholom did more than grow exponentially. Tapping into the passions of the rabbi and his congregants, the synagogue became known for its activism on behalf of the homeless, sick, underprivileged and especially Soviet Jewry.
Longtime congregant Julie Harris traveled throughout the former Soviet Union with “four other old Jewish ladies in tennis shoes” to meet with refuseniks, and found a kindred spirit in Barenbaum. Along with other members of the Jewish community, Rodef congregants and their rabbi sat in vigils in front of the Soviet embassy every month.
“Every Friday night, we set up tables where people wrote letters to refuseniks, their families and politicians. We adopted one of the families we had met. Their picture was on the bimah all the time,” recalled Harris.
Once the Soviet Jews were allowed out, Rodef Sholom helped to resettle them. When that situation, for the most part, was resolved, the synagogue turned its attention to combating homelessness. Congregants have actively participated with other Marin houses of worship to aid the homeless, including baking challah and preparing meals, and, prior to shelters opening up in Marin, housed 30 or 40 homeless people a night, according to Barenbaum.
“I’ve always had the theory that if you offer people an opportunity to do something they can actually do, to not set very lofty goals but something they can accomplish, they will feel their time and effort were worthwhile,” said Barenbaum, now the rabbi emeritus and “a happy congregant.”
“People want to do things and be useful in their lives. That’s how it happened at Rodef.”
The synagogue’s signature effort to allow its congregants to “do something they can actually do” is Mitzvah Day, a 12-year-old program started by Rabbi Stacy Friedman, now the senior rabbi.
Nearly 1,000 congregants do such things as clean up beaches, cook for the hungry, sing at nursing homes or donate blood. Other Marin institutions have joined in, making the event a yearly do-good-athon.
As the congregation passes the half-century mark, Friedman hopes to put her own unique stamp on Rodef, just as Barenbaum did.
For one, she aims to bring Judaism to people where they are, both literally and spiritually. She’s branching out into nearby Mill Valley, hosting monthly Shabbat events. And Rodef is launching alternative worship services incorporating unconventional elements such as yoga, hikes through the outdoors (“Torah on the Trail”) and “customized” minyans into synagogue life. Friedman is also floating the possibility of renovating or, perhaps, rebuilding the synagogue’s home in the coming years.
“We keep growing, we keep reinvigorating ourselves over and over again,” she said.
“We never stop growing in terms of spiritual yearnings.”