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Updated at 8:45 p.m.

Santa Rosa’s Conservative congregation has welcomed new spiritual leadership — an Israeli-born rabbi who has already found himself enchanted with Northern California. 

Congregation Beth Ami welcomed in July Rabbi Ron Koas, who most recently served as senior rabbi at a historic Conservative shul in Virginia. He replaced Senior Rabbi Mordecai Miller, who left in June after 12 years with Beth Ami as he celebrated the 50th anniversary of his ordination.

Koas, who is starting with a one-year contract, has worked at congregations throughout the East Coast for the past 18 years. Originally from Tel Aviv, he told J. that the Sonoma County landscape reminds him of the Golan Heights. He has also been impressed by the attitude of the people he has met here.

“I love the lifestyle here in California,” Koas said. “From what I see, it’s very down to earth, very laid back, very comfortable.”

Although he is at a Conservative congregation, Koas avoids rigid denominational labels. For his part, he prefers not to associate with any one denomination.

“I’m a rabbi for all Jews who serves a Conservative synagogue,” Koas told J. “I don’t see myself connected to any particular stream of Judaism. I serve the Jewish people.” 

Koas, 63, previously served as spiritual leader at two Conservative congregations on the East Coast. In 2013, he started working as an associate rabbi at the Marlboro Jewish Center in Marlboro, New Jersey. After eight years, Koas went on to serve as senior rabbi at Congregation Beth El in Norfolk, Virginia, the waterfront city known for its large naval base.

Koas’ decision to become a rabbi came later in life. He studied theater in Ramat Gan at the Beit Zvi School for the Performing Arts, worked as a shaliach (emissary) for the Jewish Agency in Australia and taught Israeli history and geography at a Tel Aviv high school. 

He considers his non-rabbinical professional experience just as valuable to his current career as his rabbinical education, which he completed in 2013 at the Mesifta Adath Wolkowisk Rabbinical Academy in New York.

Of all his former positions, Koas said, he is most proud of his time working as education director at the Park Avenue Synagogue, a Conservative congregation in Manhattan with about 2,000 families and individual congregants.

He was inspired to become a rabbi during his six years at Park Avenue, he said. In doing so, he actualized a dream his mother had one night about her son becoming a rabbi, Koas said.

“She felt it was like destiny,” he said.

Whether he’s serving a large congregation or a smaller one like Beth Ami, which has about 140 families and individual congregants, Koas said that he takes a consistent approach to his rabbinical and community leadership styles.

“I serve Beth Ami as I served Park Avenue,” Koas said. “It can be one person, it can be 2,200 — doesn’t matter. I look at every person as an individual, and I care about each and every person.”

One way that Koas tries to live up to his approach of individualized pastoral care is with the weekly Torah study session he leads every Saturday before Shabbat services. Other than a chance for him to get more face-to-face time with congregants, Koas sees these sessions as opportunities for participants to understand the Torah on their own terms.

“The Torah is for everyone,” Koas said. “You [get to] ask, ‘How is this relevant to our life now?’” 

He added: “People need to know that they have … the responsibility to interpret the Torah and to try to understand it and bring it to the 21st century.”

As Koas gets acquainted with the Santa Rosa community, Miller is settling into his new life as a semi-retired rabbi. 

After transitioning to part-time work at Beth Ami, Miller and his wife eventually moved to Redwood City to be closer to his daughter’s family. Miller, 75, doesn’t see his rabbinic career ending yet, though, and intends to become a chaplain to continue doing community work throughout the Bay Area. 

Miller, who was ordained in the Reform movement, said his 12 years at Beth Ami led him to refer to himself as a “California Conservative” rabbi –– a slightly more liberal approach to the movement compared with its more traditional equivalent back East. 

Of his achievements at Beth Ami, Miller highlighted two that brought him the most pride. He named his ability to help the congregation raise funds from the community to pay off a loan for the renovation of its main building and his adjustment of the congregation’s services during the Covid-19 pandemic.

During the pandemic, he began hosting online services twice daily via Zoom, at first from his home and later from the synagogue once it became safe enough to do so. He also helped lend out prayerbooks during the High Holidays and encouraged congregants to start a phone chain to keep in touch throughout the week. 

“My achievements aren’t necessarily the ones that go up on billboards or on TV,” Miller said. “I think it’s more a question of just trying to be there for people and trying to be kind and provide some stability.”

Miller served as rabbi for 38 years in congregations in Minnesota, Ohio and Missouri before coming to the Bay Area.

“I think it was a dream of some kind. For the first time, I was experiencing the Mediterranean climate,” he said. “My feeling was, ‘Well, if God wouldn’t help me get to Israel, this was definitely the next best thing.’”

Reflecting on his time leading Beth Ami in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, Miller said he drew wisdom from the Torah and noted that an excerpt from Psalms helped him understand how to move forward from this collective trauma.

“Olam chesed yibaneh” reads Psalms 89:3. “The world is built by kindness,” Miller translated. “And we know there’s a traditional way of interpreting the Bible, which is: From a positive, you infer the negative, which means the world will be destroyed by a lack of kindness.”

Update: The status of Rabbi Ron Koas’ hiring has been corrected. He has started with a one-year contract at Beth Ami.