New rabbi at Tacoma’s Temple Beth El will champion inclusion, combat antisemitism
Tacoma’s Temple Beth El has a new rabbi who is ready to help her congregation fulfill its spiritual Jewish needs while broadening its influence in the community at large.
Rabbi Keren Gorban started her new position July 1 at the temple just north of Tacoma Community College. She’s still learning about the 240-family congregation and how she can best minister to it and others beyond her synagogue.
“I know that there are people who are not part of this congregation who could use the sense of community and the learning and the spiritual fulfillment of it,” she said recently near the temple’s soaring central tower sheathed in red and gray stained glass. It symbolizes the pillar of fire and smoke that guided Israelites to the promised land.
“I’m really hoping to be able to bring what we’re doing out into the larger community a little bit more,” she said.
Gorban spent the last seven years in Pittsburgh, where she was an associate rabbi at Temple Sinai. At Temple Beth El, she succeeds longtime Rabbi Bruce Kadden, who is now a rabbi emeritus and still teaches classes there.
The New Jersey native is 37 years. Her age, she said, is something she doesn’t mind talking about.
“It’s actually one of the little soap boxes that I have,” she said. “We shouldn’t be so afraid of getting older. I’m excited every year I get a little bit older.”
Reform Judaism
Temple Beth El is part of the Union for Reform Judaism movement. Another Tacoma synagogue, Chabad of Pierce County, follows Orthodox Judaism.
Gorban wants to strengthen interfaith cooperation in Pierce County. In her time here she’s worked on an anti-gun violence group with other faith leaders. Temple Beth El also is holding its High Holy Days food drive which provides food and funding to local food banks in conjunction with Christian-led food banks.
The Reform Movement has long been at the forefront of progressive movements such as the acceptance of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) people.
Gorban attributes that to the Jewish philosophy of upholding the rights and dignity of all people.
“If we are all created in the image of God, then we all have that spark of the divine within us that needs to be honored and upheld,” she said. “Part of our task is being partners with God in the repair of the world. So, tikkun olam, making the world a better place or fixing the world, is part of what we do.”
Outside the temple are signs celebrating reproductive freedom. Ensuring access to abortion from a legal, legislative angle has long been part of the Reform Movement.
“I’ve worked with our board to make sure that this congregation is OK with supporting reproductive freedom,” Gorban said. The board approved the first sign that was installed but it quickly disappeared. There are now seven and a banner.
Transgender inclusion
Gorban, who has a 2-year-old child whose gender she usually declines to identify, supports transgender rights and has been working to make language surrounding Jewish rites gender neutral.
“This is a safe space for anyone regardless of gender identity,” she said of Temple Beth El. “We are careful to use the language that people are comfortable with.”
She calls Hebrew “a very gendered language.” Unlike English but similar to Spanish and other languages, Hebrew assigns a gender to nouns, adjectives and verbs.
The traditional coming of age ceremony for boys, bar mitzvahs, and girls, bat mitzvahs, are now just called mitzvahs at Temple Beth El.
Rising antisemitism
It’s not easy getting into Temple Beth El. Doors are locked. Visitors must be buzzed in. An array of cameras keep watch on the building, which has been subjected to vandalism, arson, antisemitic graffiti and threats over the years.
Based on Anti-Defamation League statistics, Gorban feels antisemitism is on the rise in America. She’s experienced it in the most tragic ways and as recently as last week.
Gorban worked just blocks away from the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh when a gunman shouting antisemitic slurs shot to death 11 congregants and wounded police officers and others on Oct. 27, 2018.
“I’ve experienced antisemitism at much closer proximity than many people have,” she said. “But it’s also happening in all sorts of little ways, everywhere.”
On Oct. 9 singer Kanye West made the news for tweeting a hostile message against Jews.
On the day she sat down for an interview with The News Tribune, she received a letter from out of state telling her that she had to tell her congregation that Jesus Christ is lord and savior.
“And if I don’t proclaim that to my congregation, then we’re all gonna go to hell,” she said.
Threatening voicemails and emails sent to the temple this past summer were a bigger concern.
Gorban said she maintains an awareness of threats but doesn’t spend much time worrying about them.
“The antisemitism that I’m concerned about is the kids who might have tests on Yom Kippur and teachers don’t want to make arrangements for them,” she said. In that same vein she’s concerned that the recent U.S. Supreme Court case that originated in Bremerton allowing prayer at public school athletic events would have a negative impact on non-Christians.
“There is a real concern that Jewish kids might be excluded, intentionally or unintentionally, from school sports because of Christian prayer,” she said.
“Those are the things that need to be on my radar,” Gorban said. “Because that affects my people. And this is my community, and I care about each of the people in my community.”
Conversions
In Jewish tradition, someone asking to convert to Judaism must be turned away three times before they are accepted.
“And while I don’t actually do that, I may have to start doing that because there’s no space in my schedule,” she said, referring to a steady stream of potential converts.
She knows that the Pacific Northwest is one of the most unchurched regions in the country, but she doesn’t feel that means people are correspondingly against organized religion.
“They just happen to haven’t necessarily found something here,” she said.
