Rabbi Glenn Karonsky was known for rolling up his sleeves and getting to work.
Karonsky — who retired this summer as executive director of the Center for Jewish Living and Learning at the Jewish Community Federation of the Greater East Bay — would occasionally appear at educational retreats and scrub down pots, pans, kitchen counters and even blowtorch ovens to make the kitchens kosher.
Former colleague Jo-Ann Jacobson, vice president of the East Bay federation, said Karonsky was always willing to do what was required, even if he was the man in charge.
“He is willing to serve food if he needs to,” she said, adding that he never needed to be in the spotlight. “He enables people to star in what they can star in.”
The native San Franciscan spent 25 years as a Jewish educator, and his almost 13-year stint leading the East Bay’s Jewish educational agenda is marked with numerous highlights and organizational growth his colleagues call unprecedented.
He was involved in opening two new Jewish day schools in the East Bay, and helped start a program that provided special-education resources to parents and day schools, plus a summer Israel program for teens that now sends more than 100 East Bay teens a year to the Middle East, proportionately more than most other communities its size.
And Karonsky is credited with doubling the participation in Midrasha, the after-school Jewish education program for high school students, making it the second-largest communal system for teen Jewish education in the nation, he said.
Karonsky said he prioritized Midrasha because he saw the potential for securing Jewish identity and passion about Jewish living and learning.
“[The] East Bay has conquered the notion that Jewish education ends at bar- and bat mitzvah,” he said, adding that the center’s research showed that almost 90 percent of all East Bay b’nai mitzvah students continue their education into the Midrasha programming. The number who continue through high school graduation is “staggering,” he added.
“When you put the whole package together, students leave their high school years secure in their Jewish identity and passionate about Jewish living and learning.”
In fact, Karonsky thinks Jewish education for children is presently so outstanding that many students have greater knowledge than their parents.
He thinks the next steps should be serving the growing East Bay Jewish community, giving adults a more intense opportunity to study Judaism and reaching out to assimilated Jews.
And what does a retiring 49-year-old rabbi do?
Karonsky is leaving Jewish communal work, moving to the Peninsula and pursuing a private-business opportunity. He is beginning a second career, but he said the impact of his first one — and his passion for Jewish education — will last his lifetime.
Loren Basch, CEO of the East Bay federation, said Karonsky has had an impact on the lives of many kids, some of whom have already become community leaders and educators.
“Anytime that Glenn was asked to perform rabbinical duties, certainly in terms of teaching us about the Jewish holidays and conducting the Jewish holidays at the federation, he was just tremendous,” Basch said. “He was always ready to serve and do his best for the community.”