Not so long ago, Loren Ford saw his community at Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills roiled by dissension and acrimony.
Back in fall 2022, the synagogue’s board, of which Ford was a member, voted to let the contract of Beth Am’s then-senior rabbi, Jeremy Morrison, lapse. The move took many members by surprise and triggered an outcry that split the congregation. Angry letters and emails circulated, and some staffers and board members resigned.
Now, nearly three years later, Beth Am leaders say hope has returned to the prominent Reform congregation, established 70 years ago. The board has named a new senior rabbi, and the synagogue has revised its policies on terminating clergy contracts to enable more transparency.
“They’ve learned to sit beside each other at a service,” said Ford of the two once-bitter sides. “Now we hear, ‘Stop saying we’re broken and need to heal. Let’s get on with it.’”
At a June 8 congregational meeting, Beth Am members voted overwhelmingly to promote their longtime associate rabbi, Rabbi Heath Watenmaker, to the position of senior rabbi, effective July 2026. Interim Senior Rabbi Arthur Nemitoff will continue on in his role during the coming transition.
Watenmaker, 44, who joined the clergy team in 2014, is grateful for the support and sees his promotion as a sign his community has healed. Looking back, the rabbi labeled the years of congregational turmoil as “heartbreaking.”
“My [prior] experience was that people here got along and respected each other,” he told J. in a phone call on July 11. “It was a place where people felt cohesive. So it was heartbreaking to see that kind of unrest. The past few years have been bumpy and chaotic. But one thing I came to realize in talking through some of the challenges with people who were most vocally upset was a deep love of Beth Am.”
Deborah Radin, 61, grew up at Beth Am, where she celebrated her bat mitzvah decades ago. She later rejoined as an adult, and in June she was elected president of the congregation, which has about 1,200 member families.
Radin has crafted an ambitious to-do list, including hiring a new associate rabbi, shoring up the synagogue’s sprawling campus with physical improvements, deepening member engagement, reviving leadership training programs and speaking out against rising antisemitism.
Radin agreed that a sense of excitement has returned to the community, but she also acknowledged the lessons learned over three difficult years.
“It was incredibly painful,” she said of that period of schism. “I kept my heart and mind on our goal, wondering, can we get there? Over these last years we’ve addressed it. We all focused on our goal and if our hearts were aligned. We started listening to each other.”
The crisis began in the spring and summer of 2022 as the Beth Am board considered whether to renew Morrison’s contract. He had been hired to replace Rabbi Janet Marder, who had served as senior rabbi for decades.
The deliberations were kept confidential. Once the board announced its decision not to renew, it declined to state its reasons, citing privacy concerns. Supporters of Morrison cried foul, while board members said they followed the synagogue bylaws to the letter.
With the hiring of Nemitoff in the interim, a sense of normalcy began to return. The board went on to change its bylaws, allowing the congregation to vote on decisions to terminate clergy contracts going forward.
“Governance is not a thing you do quickly,” said Ford, who sat on a committee that oversaw the bylaw amendment process. “The rules were in place since 1955. We thought about the senior rabbi renewal process, baking in some transparency into the bylaws and taking every opportunity so we could say, ‘Is this clear enough? Will this lead to conflict?’ We brought that to the congregation, and it resoundingly passed.”
Ford said the most “exciting piece” of all the changes is the promotion of Watenmaker, whom he called “a really stabilizing choice. He brings a lot of strengths. People are delighted. People really like him.”
The feeling is mutual for the rabbi. A native of Los Angeles, Watenmaker received his ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 2011, serving at Rutgers University Hillel before coming to Beth Am.
“My first goal is to get us to a place of being stable and joyful again,” he said, “then thinking about how we can grow, flourish and innovate…. I know the people in this congregation. I’ve been through life-cycle celebrations, difficult situations, baby namings, bar and bat mitzvahs. People feel they have been part of my professional growth and have had a hand in my getting to this point.”
Radin is relieved Beth Am, especially as she and her fellow members prepare to celebrate the synagogue’s 70th anniversary this year.
“We reached a place where we could trust each other,” she said. “The people who were so angry a year ago are coming up to me now and saying: How can I help? I am back and I can breathe again.”