Rating: 
Summary: For temple fans and more...
Review: If you're as actively Jewish as I am, you've got to read this book. Even if you're not Jewish, you'll learn something about how a huge, wealthy religious community really works. Fried does a terrific job as he takes the reader behind the pulpit of this celebrated synagogue, meets its renowned rabbi (whom I happen to be related to) and his charismatic
"Hollywood star-rabbi" son, and adds his own personal Jewish experience. This is a different kind of "Jewish book", with an emphasis on real life and community rather than lofty spiritual
or scholarly material. If that's up your alley- and I'm as much of a "knowledgeable shul fan" as a couple of the guys you'll read about here- don't miss this.
Rating:
Summary: This Book Reads as Smoothly as a Well-Written Novel
Review: In this book Steven Fried used his investigative journalistic skill in reporting on the life and world of American Jews. He follows a distinguished rabbi as he finishes his thirty year career in a prominent Jewish congregation in Philadelphia. The account reads as smoothly as a well written novel. Anyone familiar with a church or synagogue will experience a feeling of kinship with the rabbis and their families as the story unfolds. The skillfully drawn portraits of other actors in the drama remind the reader of people familiar in their lives. No one who has served on a pulpit nominating committee or been the object of the committee's investigation can fail to enjoy Temple Har Zion's search for Rabbi Wolpe's successor. The rabbi's devotion to his invalid wife and her determined will to fill her place in life no matter what her physical limitation win the reader's admiration. Both Jews and non Jews will find this an interesting and informative book.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for Background reading
Review: The book gives us quite fascinating details of the inner life of a Philadelphia Conservative synagogue, and, by implication, all synagogues. Even people who have belonged to synagogues for years will find much of interest and many insights. But when the book purports to tell the story of rabbinical succession, it falls short. The author interviewed an admirable number of the players in this drama. But what he has learned does not add up to a coherent account. The author focuses on the "search committee," and, indeed, it would seem that this is where most of the decisions were made. But he fails to give us the context: 1) what are the rules for appointing such committees ?; 2) how in fact was the committee appointed ? 3) how were committee decisions ratified by the board and/or congregation ? To answer 1), we need to know something about the bylaws of the congregation. Bylaws are never mentioned in this book. Nor is the Religious Corporation Law of the state, which generally sets a legal environment for the congregation. To answer 2), we need to know something about the politics of the congregation, and its factions and cliques. The author suggests that at least one member of the congregation wanted to be on the search committee but was not appointed. But he doesn't follow up by asking who, why, and how one makes it to a committee of this sort. To answer 3), we would again need to know about the bylaws. Do they require ratification by the congregation, by the board, by whom ? Beyond the bylaws which set the formal rules, again, we need to know how the procedure works in practice. In short, the book does not tell us about the actual group dynamics, that is to say the politics of the congregation. Internal politics work by factions and cliques. To learn how these work, we need to know who talks to whom and how, inside and outside the formal meetings. But despite these shortcomings, this is a book that anyone with an interest in the sociology of American religion will want to read.
Rating:
Summary: Heartwarming and Horrifying
Review: THE NEW RABBI gives us an inside look at the rabbinical search process at a notable North American shul. Though the congregation in question is Conservative, the search process described closely parallels the process of my own Reform movement. The emotions, personalities and politics described certainly reflect universal aspects of synagogue life. The book is also in part a meditation on being a rabbi in the North Ameican milieu. His examination of the career of the out-going rabbi, Gerald Wolpe, is both frank and compelling. But while the author spends a great deal of time reflecting on the life of R. Wolpe and on his assistant and potential in-house successor, Jacob Harber, he really concentrates on the congregation's perspective in the search. As a result, we do not get a real sense of what the search process feels like to the applicant rabbis. Harber is, in a sense, drafted by the congregation, so his experience is less than paradigmatic. Perhaps, as a rabbi, I over-identify with that aspect. Still, I wish he had spent some time interviewing the rabbinical candidates for Har Zion to include their POV. Even so, this is a first-rate bit of investigative journalism on a little-know and sensitive aspect of Jewish communal life. While the author writes sympathetically about everyone involves, this work is revealing enough to make me wonder whether he will be welcome back at Har Zion any time soon. The issues that come up in THE NEW RABBI will, at times, seem arcane to someone totally unfamiliar with synaogues. Nevertheless it is well-done and most readable. Most people involved in organized religion of any sort will get something out of it, and it certainly it should be required reading for rabbis and search committees in shuls everywhere.
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