Retired rabbi back on job
Visions of languishing on a beach replaced by work
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Rabbi Myron Fenster takes the helm at Congregation Tifereth Israel in Greenport. He is replacing Rabbi Jackie Wexler, who moved to Australia to accept a rabbinical post there.
The new rabbi at Congregation Tifereth Israel, who replaces Rabbi Jackie Wexler, who has moved to Australia, put down roots for 36 years at Shelter Rock Jewish Center in Roslyn. When he retired six years ago, Rabbi Fenster had visions of "languishing on the beach in Haifa." As rabbi emeritus -- a term he jokes means "rabbi without merit" -- he thought the rest was well earned.
That was not to be. After a brief trip to Israel to visit his son and family who live there, he was back on Long Island, accepting a challenge to become an interim rabbi at Temple Israel in Great Neck. After more than a year, the congregation hired a full-time rabbi, and again retirement beckoned. And again, he was called to fill interim posts in Old Westbury, East Hampton and now Greenport.
He calls his time in East Hampton "the most challenging, exciting, frustrating, exhilarating" period he has known, mostly because it is a reform temple and he is a Conservative rabbi. Also, the congregation had had a long history of unrest and was looking for someone to "try to quiet things down," he says.
"When I was ordained, I was told to teach Torah to whomever would listen," Rabbi Fenster says. That's how he made his peace with congregants in East Hampton. Because of his more strict Jewish background, he knew he wouldn't find everyone in agreement with his beliefs. But the differences made for lively dialogues, he says.
Leaving each interim post meant another retirement luncheon and prompted his grandson, Zachary Fenster, to joke that he was finished attending such events after five in a row.
He initially promised his new congregation that he would provide services through the fall Jewish holidays and then go to visit his son and his family in Israel. But now he says if they want him back after that, he's willing to work out an agreement for a longer term.
His ties to Israel go back to his own youth when, after being ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, his teacher and mentor, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, prompted him to accept a post as the first Conservative rabbi in the Orthodox country of Israel.
"Why me?" he asked, thinking surely there were more seasoned rabbis who could bring experience to the challenge.
"We're not asking them; we're asking you," his mentor responded.
After a year in Haifa, he and his family "had come to love Haifa." But when he was offered the opportunity to stay permanently, he and wife, Ricky, spent hours talking over "many cups of tea" and finally decided it was time to come back to the United States.
But one of their sons so loved Israel that he has moved back there with his own family and has lived there for 32 years. That has the Fensters making several trips a year to visit with them, the rabbi says.
Rabbi Fenster is the son of a refugee from Poland who came to this country in 1920, married an American woman and created a successful bakery supply business in Brooklyn. Rabbi Fenster was expected to follow in his footsteps.
He is a past president of the New York Board of Rabbis and has taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he concentrated on techniques of presentation.
As for plans for the future at Tifereth Israel, it's too soon, Rabbi Fenster says.
But he's optimistic he'll be back after his next trip to Israel and that he and his wife can settle down happily in Greenport.
jlane@timesreview.com
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