At home in St. Joseph, Mo., Mary Friedman drives a red Geo festooned with Jewish bumper stickers. “The Israeli flag, the little gefilte fish, the whole thing,” she says.
But to prepare for her new life in Northern California, she has been peeling them all off.
Come August, Friedman and her husband, the Bay Area-born and raised Rabbi Matthew Friedman, will leave their congregation of 70 households in a town where no one locks their doors.
He will replace retiring Rabbi Joseph Melamed at Reform Congregation Beth Shalom in suburban Carmichael — one of the three Sacramento area synagogues struck by arsonists June 18.
The Friedmans have been briefed on the history of far-right groups that dot the outposts of the Sierra foothills region. Still, a larger and more varied Jewish community offers a strong attraction that outweighs the risks. And Matthew Friedman, who attended Peninsula Temple Sholom in Burlingame as a child, will be “very happy to come back to the Bay Area.”
Discussing his move to the Carmichael synagogue, which suffered more than $100,000 in damage when arsonists set fire to the bimah, he said, “It’s a bit of a challenge, but we are not fearful.”
The rabbi has been calling every day to offer support to his future congregants, whose sanctuary escaped total destruction because of the sprinkler system.
“So much of where people live their lives and mark their important passages takes place in a house of worship,” he said. “This was much like the series of fires a couple of years ago that targeted black churches. It’s a measure of mean-spiritedness, intimidation and out-and-out hatred.”
His current synagogue, Congregation Adath Joseph, was also ignited by antagonists — in fact, leveled. But that was in 1865.
“It took me back, I’ll say that,” Mary Friedman said of last month’s arson fires, which are being investigated by federal and local law enforcement agencies as a hate crime. “Here we are, living not just in Missouri, but in northwest Missouri, where more of that kind of thing is likely to take place. But now? And in Northern California?”
Despite the devastation, congregants pushed ahead with their annual food fair a week after the conflagration blackened the sanctuary and spat shattered glass throughout its entrance. The new rabbi admires their resolve.
“Already his caring manner has come out,” said Beth Shalom’s President-elect Jana Uslan. “Ever since the fire, he has been calling daily. It’s, ‘What can I do?’ He was ready to get on a plane and come right out here. And after the food fair he called to see how I was doing.”
Matthew Friedman asserts that he is gaining as much as he is giving.
One of those gains is in the sheer number of congregants. At 300 households, Beth Shalom is much bigger than St. Joe’s Adath Joseph.
“And there is a younger demographic at Beth Shalom,” said Friedman, who is 41. “It’s a very energetic congregation. I like what I see of their existing programs, and I look forward to introducing some new ones, like a youth group.
“My goal is to keep kids around through their high school years, and expose them to higher levels of Jewish thought. They are much more likely then to continue Judaic studies in college and to keep that at the center of their lives as adults. Success in growth comes one person at a time.”
The total Jewish population in St. Joseph numbers about 250 “at the upper end,” he said. “Here, I’m the JCRC, I’m the ADL, I’m the voice of the Jewish community. It has its plus side, but it will be very nice to have colleagues.”
Not only is Beth Shalom larger, but it also is more traditional than the Reform synagogue in St. Joseph. That suits Mary Friedman just fine.
And because Beth Shalom has no Saturday services, the former Mary Kathleen Kelly can visit other synagogues to practice the Conservative faith to which she converted in Israel “a few years back.”
“We say, sure, we have a mixed marriage: He’s Reform and I’m Conservative,” she said.
The small-town rabbi, who came to St. Joe by way of Little Rock, Ark., has met its former governor, Bill Clinton, “several times,” before and since he became president. Since he became a rabbi, the one-time transportation planner has counseled felons in federal and state prisons and has taught college.
“When we interviewed him, I was very impressed by the amount of community work he had been doing, everything from prison work to Rotary Club,” Uslan said. “He’s out there representing the temple. We also heard he works beautifully with children. Those two things right there are very important to me.”
The rabbi is the son of longtime Jewish community activists, Dr. Manny and Harriet Friedman of Burlingame. The former has served as a board member of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation, and the latter volunteers with Jewish Community Information and Referral.
Rabbi Gerald Raiskin of Peninsula Temple Sholom still keeps in touch with his former student.
“He grew up in the congregation, was bar mitzvah and confirmed here,” he said. “He always took a lot of interest in the synagogue.”
Friedman was the first congregant to become a rabbi.
“He was working as a planner, but his interest in the rabbinate wasn’t out of the blue,” Raiskin said. “Still, it meant five more years of school, and I think that took a lot of courage on his part. It’s wonderful to get him back to the area.”