|
|
|
Jewish World Review Dec. 22, 1999/ 13 Teves, 5760
IF ARYEH SCHEINBERG were your typical Orthodox rabbi, the
Jewish community of San Antonio would be engulfed right
now in an ugly fight that would leave everyone a loser, most
of all the children. But Scheinberg isn't typical, and the Jews
of south Texas are at peace.
Last August the community
opened its spanking-new "campus," bringing the Jewish
federation, family service, community center and San
Antonio's sole Jewish day school under one $18 million roof.
"It's an amazing place," says Pat Tonkin, who had become
the day school's headmistress in July. "We're all in it
together."
Tonkin can rattle off a list of Scheinberg's qualities, but the
most remarkable is probably the fact that he works with her
at all.
She was converted to Judaism by a Reform rabbi 14
years ago. By Orthodox standards she's not Jewish. Yet
since she took over the school this summer, Scheinberg
has accorded her every due respect. Tonkin isn't
Scheinberg's only fan. Judy Koch, a Reform convert and
administrator of the community campus, says Reform
converts are "interwoven as Jews in this community in our
professional and religious lives, and it's been his leadership
that's helped make it possible."
Scheinberg says his approach to Reform converts isn't all
that revolutionary. He decided several years ago that while
they weren't Jews under traditional rabbinic law, it was hard
to deny they'd become members of the Jewish community
in some genuine sense. In effect, he's developed a sort of
second category: Jewish in communal terms, but not
religiously.
"If a (non-Orthodox) convert wanted to come to my shul and be counted in a
minyan, or get married, that would be problematic,"
Scheinberg says. "But if they were elected to the board of
federation, they would be acknowledged as members of the
Jewish community. No one is saying they're more than they
are. Nor are they less than they are."
Folks say Scheinberg's
personality is the key. "You understand intellectually that as
an Orthodox rabbi he might not recognize us religiously as
Jews," says Judy Koch. "But personally you would never be
aware of it, because he treats us with such respect."
Mutual compromise makes San Antonio Jewry a rare island
of peace. A community of 10,000 in a city of 1 million, it
boasts five congregations, one each from Reconstructionist
through Chassidic. The friendship between Scheinberg and
Stahl, the community's acknowledged patriarchs, sets the
tone for everyone. "It's a very unusual community," says
federation director Mark Freedman.
Scheinberg, a cherubic, bearded man of 60, was raised in
Brooklyn, ordained at a right-wing yeshiva and came to San
Antonio 30 years ago. San Antonio Jewry has since doubled
in size. His congregation has tripled.
Scheinberg denies he's sacrificed any Orthodox principle in
seeking peace.
On the contrary, without bending rules he's won Orthodoxy
new respect. Next year he's launching a kollel, an adult
education institute run by four Orthodox scholars who will
live in town and teach full-time, backed by all five
congregations.
As for his own congregants, their piety grows steadily. Many
Orthodox synagogues outside America's biggest cities have
full parking lots every Saturday, with only a small core fully
observant. Scheinberg's core is so strong that he moved his
shul last year to a suburban enclave he had built, Shalom
Drive, with a sanctuary surrounded by homes for families
wanting to live in walking distance.
Aryeh Scheinberg
almost met the limits of his pluralism this summer, when
Pat Tonkin was hired as San Antonio's day-school principal.
Besides being a Reform convert, she's married to a
non-Jew. She adopted Judaism as a divorced mother in
Houston, drawn by conviction. During her conversion, she
says, the rabbi somehow "never, ever said to me" that she
was expected to marry a Jew. Since then she's acquired
much more knowledge. She's also acquired a husband.
Scheinberg says Tonkin's combination of professional skills,
personal qualities, plus Jewish learning and commitment,
made her the obvious choice for principal. Still, close to
one-third of the school's 115 pupils come from his
congregation. How to educate against intermarriage, when
their headmistress is herself intermarried, isn't simple.
Scheinberg "could have taken the easy way out," says Rabbi
Sam Stahl, "by simply saying she's not Jewish, so it doesn't
matter whom she marries. But he didn't do that. He chose to
struggle with it." Scheinberg says he's not worried. "We'll
find a solution," he says.
He always
Fervently un-Orthodox
By J. J. Goldberg
Tonkin credits much of the good feeling to Scheinberg, the
Orthodox rabbi, whose Congregation Rodfei Sholom -- which translates as "pursuer of peace" -- is
about a mile from campus. "He unifies this community," she
says.
Part of the credit belongs to the quarter-century friendship
between Scheinberg and Rabbi Samuel Stahl of Temple
Beth-El, the Reform congregation. They cooperate on
everything from the day school to Israel Independence Day
to co-officiating at weddings -- although, Stahl notes, "it has
to follow his rules. He will take the halacha to its furthest
point, but that's as far as he will go. It's the only way we can
work together, and I understand."
"We're reaching a point in all the movements where our
ideologies have begun to trump our love of the Jewish
people," says Rabbi Irwin Kula of CLAL, the National Jewish
Center for Learning and Leadership, which promotes
intermovement dialogue. "What's happening in San Antonio
seems unique. The question is, how much is because it's
San Antonio, and how much is because two people were in
a relationship that allowed each to understand the other's
basic needs. That's genuine pluralism."
JWR contributor J.J. Goldberg is the author of Jewish Power : Inside the American Jewish
Establishment. Send your comments to him by clicking here.
