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Our Rabbi

Rabbi  Search

The shul continues its search for our new rabbi. The committee did an excellent job of defining our rabbinic need and identifying superb candidates.  The search continues, and another promising candidate has already expressed interest. 

Rabbi Daniel Steinberg has completed his 6 months of service as our interim rabbi. We thank him for all the good work he did for the shul. At this time Rabbi Steinberg has declined to continue as the interim rabbi. We wish the rabbi, Devorah, and family continued success in all their endeavors as valued members of our shul. 

Fortunately, Rabbeim in our shul, and others in the community, are willing to share the rabbinic work.

David Ginsburg will continue the davening times and calendar, as he has done for many years. Moshe Yachnes will again do the weekly Shabbos bulletin, update the website, and send out announcements. Avi Benmoshe, with his many years of mashgiach work, is very willing to oversee kashrus. Aaron Portman, will continue comforting the sick and their families as a chaplain intern. We have enjoyed the dvars or classes of David Ginsburg, Moshe Yachnes, Yehuda Fried, Yitz Kaltmann, Avi Benmoshe and Aaron Portman this past year, and look forward to more.  Importantly, the Columbus Community Kollel rabbis are willing to share dvar Torahs and classes. 

With Hashem’s help, Congregation Ahavas Sholom will continue to be a strong spiritual home for davening, learning, family life events, and programs.

Thank you,

The officers and board of Ahavas Sholom 

Good afternoon,

We wanted to update the congregation on some new developments in our search process after three exceptional candidate weekends.

We appreciate all of you who came out to attend the various events, and to meet with these three candidates and their wives. The sense of excitement was palpable and the energy we felt confirmed our belief that Rabbis Lemann, Bergman and Eisenberg were indeed the top candidates for the role.

But as is often the case with such exceptional, qualified candidates, other opportunities have been presented to each of them.

We are sad to announce that both Rabbi and Lemann and Rabbi Eisenberg have accepted positions offered to them in other cities. Rabbi Bergman is continuing his job search and cannot commit to Ahavas Sholom at this time. We wish them all success in their future endeavors.

Given the developments above, we will be pressing pause on our search efforts and seeking guidance from our Rabbinic placement partners as well as input from the congregation to decide our path forward.

We will keep you posted on our path forward and are confident that with Hashem’s guidance, we will find the next Rabbi for Ahavas Sholom

The Board and Search Committee

The vote for the rabbi will take place Thursday evening February 23rd. In-person voting will start at 7 pm and close by 8:30 pm. Each spouse has a separate vote. Only full members who are up to date on their dues are eligible to vote. 

At the congregational meeting today, the motion to modify the bylaws to allow for absentee voting was approved.  

For members who cannot vote in person this Thursday evening between 7 pm and 8:30 pm, these are the instructions for absentee voting:

  • Please email your request for an absentee ballot by this Tuesday evening 2/21/2023 to: asrabbisearch@gmail.com
  • You will be emailed a link to fill out a Google form which will serve as your absentee ballot. The form must be filled out and submitted by 7 pm this Thursday, 2/23/2023. You will be asked to enter your email, your name and your vote for your first choice for Rabbi. You will then click next and fill out the next page asking you to vote for your choice of the 2 top remaining Rabbis in all 3 possible runoff scenarios. This second page will only be used in the event that none of the three candidates receives more than 50% of the vote. In this situation, the candidate receiving the fewest votes will be dropped and the remaining 2 candidates will be voted on. Click submit when you are finished filling out the form. 
  •  Only 3 people will have access to the ballot, to confirm you are an eligible voter, to record the vote and to have a list of everyone who voted online. Your vote will remain confidential.

 

      If you have any questions, please email asrabbisearch@gmail.com

Q&A Recordings

If you were unable to join us for any of the question and answer sessions, or if you need to refresh your memory of any of the 3 candidates, you can access the recordings of all 3 Q&A sessions by clicking on the link below:
Q&A Recordings

Dear Congregants,

The Ahavas Sholom search committee is excited to announce the details for our upcoming weekends with our Rabbinic candidates. There will be a variety of opportunities to meet them and their families, to interact with them, and to consider their candidacy as our next Rabbi. 

On February 3rd, Rabbi Shmuel Lemann will be joining us in Columbus. His wife, Sarah, is expecting their 3rd child imminently, and while she will be unable to join him for the trip, we will have opportunities for you to meet her via zoom. We wish them a Besha'a Tova at this exciting time. 

On February 9th, we will welcome Rabbi Sammy Bergman and his family to Columbus, and on the weekend of February 17th, we will welcome Rabbi Shlomo Eisenberg, and his wife Liba for his probeh weekend.

The Rabbis will attend Ahavas Sholom minyanim while they are in town and will visit our schools and other institutions to get a better feel for the community. Please make every effort to attend shul on Shabbat mornings, where each candidate will deliver the Shabbos drasha. 

There will also be an interactive shiur given by Shalosh Seudos on all three shabbosim, and special Shabbos women’s programs on February 11 and 18. Additionally, we invite all shul members to join us for davening followed by brunch, on Sunday mornings (2/5, 2/12 and 2/19) when congregants will have the opportunity to engage in a Q & A session with the Rabbanim. Babysitting will be provided at the shul.

Thank you for your continued patience as we endeavor to bring our search process to a successful end. More details regarding the voting process are forthcoming. 

Shabbat shalom. 

The Search Committee

Dear Congregants,

We are excited to announce that preparations are underway for "proba" shabbosim with our three rabbinic candidate finalists. Please mark the dates of February 4th, 11th, and 18th on your calendar, and plan to be in attendance so you can have the opportunity to meet each of our candidates. We are planning multiple events to give everyone a chance to meet and hear from the candidates. We will release more information about the candidates in the coming week. Thank you for your continued patience and trust in us.

The Search Committee

Dear Congregants,

We would like to update you on our rabbinic search process, and the progress we have made thus far. B’H, we have received many impressive resumes and have had first round interviews with all of the candidates. 

Three of these candidates stood out, (unanimously in this committee’s opinion) for their experience and energy, as well as their thoughtful approach to our questions and their interest in our synagogue and Columbus. We have begun meeting with these three candidates a second time to ask more in-depth questions. Assuming all continues to go well, we will plan to bring them to town for a short day trip, to meet with the Board and other local Rabbaim, and to tour the community. 

For those we would like to move forward after the day visit, we will give them an opportunity to spend Shabbos in our community to meet everyone. We want to give the congregation enough advanced notice as to the timing so that as many of you can be in attendance as possible to meet the candidates and their wives/families. We are looking at the end of February and the beginning of March for those weekend visits. We will update the congregation once we have the dates finalized. 

Thank you for trusting us with this process, 

The Search Committee

Hello congregants,

We wanted to provide an update on the efforts of our rabbinic search process. We have been working with our contacts to promote our job opening and to publicize the position in various platforms. Following the guidance we received from Rabbi Schwartzberg, the position went live on the J Careers website shortly after Sukkot. B”H we have received a number of candidates to consider through this site and other channels.

The search committee continues to meet frequently and will shortly begin first round Zoom interviews with candidates. These interviews will be facilitated by Rebeka Lefkowitz and Rabbi Moshe Yachnes, who were selected by the committee for their individual talents and areas of expertise, to guide the conversation. They will pose questions the entire committee has prioritized, based in large part on the congregational input we received from the survey you completed. The entire committee will also be present at the interviews, though in listening roles so as to be able to discuss each candidate under consideration.

We will update you as we progress thru this process. Our gratitude goes to each of you for your trust in us and our appreciation to Rabbi Steinberg, the Board and our many volunteers who continue to show why Ahavas Sholom is such a special place to call home. 

Regards,

The Search Committee 

Rabbi David Claman has taken a rabbinic position in Hollywood, Florida.  We thank him for his 6 years leading Ahavas Sholom, and wish him well.

A rabbinic search committee has been formed, and is in progress.  We thank this committee of dedicated members:

  1. Perle Benmoshe
  2. Shoshana Ginsburg
  3. Jonathan Gisser
  4. David Grashin
  5. Dotan Herszage
  6. Rebecca Lefkovitz
  7. Joey Nutis
  8. Ruth Pack Adler
  9. Rabbi Moshe Yachnes
Wed, May 31 2023 11 Sivan 5783