rabbinic transitions

[cellio]

An observation from perhaps too little data (so further data welcome): if a rabbi leaves his congregation and is seeking other employment, then it seems that one of the following things is true: (1) his next job is not with a congregation; (2) he's helping to found a new congregation; (3) he's leaving town. It appears that trying to move to another established congregation in the same city is awkward in several ways and thus rarely done.

Just something for someone thinking about the rabbinate to keep in mind: congregational life implies nomadic life.

Comments

[goljerp]

New York, and probably the Boston metro area are two other places where this is possible. There's a Rabbi I know who's very nice, who was Rabbi down in lower manhattan, then had a pulpit up on the Upper West Side (UWS) of manhattan, before moving to philly, where he's been for 4 years. (He's Reconstructionist, if that makes any difference...) Or, again on the UWS, Rabbi Michael Strassfeld left Ansche Chesed for SAJ (which is not that far away). But I know there were people who left AC for SAJ (and probably a few who did the reverse move).

I suspect that things have to do also with why the rabbi is leaving, where they're going, and the personalities involved. I believe that in Portland, ME (not a huge Jewish community, certainly not on the LA/Boston/NY level), there's a Rabbi who's emeritius at one shul and part-time at a different one... but I think that's probably not typical, and there may have been a certain amount of 'new shul founding' going on (or, more accurately, revitalizing an existing shul which was dissapearing.)

But as a generalization, the places where you're likely to be able to move from rabbinic pulpit to pulpit without leaving the greater metro area are also places that probably wouldn't fit into your critera of 'not too big a city'.

[cellio]

New York, and probably the Boston metro area are two other places where this is possible.

Yeah, to the outsider New York is like 20 cities packed in very tightly. :-)

[magid.livejournal.com]

But Boston's not!
(she says, completely disinterestedly :-)

[cellio]

It's true; of LA, NYC, and Boston, I find Boston the most city-like (as opposed to metropolis-like), even though I know you've got suburbs and stuff just like everyone else.

I should clarify that I have visited each of these cities (or metro areas) one or two times in my life, though, so this really is an outside perspective.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Boston is only like 3 or 4 cities packed in very tightly.

Either is better than having seven cities spread out over five times as much land as they should be. Psigh.