Welcome to Temple Beth Shalom

Meet Our Rabbis

Rabbi Howard L. Apothaker, Ph.D.

Rabbi Howard L. Apothaker, Ph.D. has served as Rabbi for Temple Beth Shalom of Columbus/New Albany, Ohio since 1980. As a student rabbi, he served congregations in New York City. He has also served a start-up congregation in Beer Sheva, Israel.

A native Philadelphian and honors graduate of Brown University (1974), Rabbi Apothaker was ordained at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (NY, 1980). He holds an M.A. (HUC-JIR, NY, 1977) and a Ph.D. in Rabbinic Literature (HUC-JIR, Cincinnati, 1996). He has been a Visiting Graduate Student at New York University, The Jewish Theological Seminary in Jerusalem and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has won numerous academic fellowships, including the Daniel Jeremy Silver Fellowship at Harvard University (1999-2000). He has served as an adjunct instructor at Capital University and The Ohio State University and has lectured, inter alia, at Franklin University, Otterbein College, Ohio Dominican University, and Mt. Vernon Nazarene University. He has written a book on classical rabbinic midrash—Sifra, Dibbura de Sinai: Rhetorical Formulae, Literary Structures, and Legal Traditions (Hebrew Union College Press, 2000), has published numerous scholarly articles, and has lectured at a variety of academic conferences.

Rabbi Apothaker currently serves as co-president of B.R.E.A.D., a faith-based justice coalition. He has served as president of the Columbus Board of Rabbis and on numerous local boards, including Columbus Torah Academy, Columbus Jewish Federation, Leo Yassenoff Jewish Community Center, Jewish Family Services, Wexner Heritage Village, Jewish Scouting of Central Ohio, Columbus Jewish Historical Society, Jewish National Fund, Ohio Holocaust Education Council, and Central Ohio State of Israel Bonds.

Rabbi Apothaker has also served on the Board of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, for which he has also served on a number of national committees, including the Committee on Reform Jewish Principles (1999). He has served as president of the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley Association of Reform Rabbis.

In addition to congregational and Jewish community activities, Rabbi Apothaker was the founding president of the Interfaith Association of Central Ohio and the local chapter of Children in Grief. He is a founder of the Congregational Alliance of New Albany (where he has served as president). Rabbi Apothaker has served on the faculty of the URJ regional camp, the Goldman Union Camp Institute. Among other honors, Rabbi Apothaker has received the Buckeye Boys Ranch Award in recognition of Community Accomplishments and Continuing Influence in Religion with in the Community.

Rabbi Apothaker was a college wrestler, rowed on the crew team, and still participates in a variety of athletic activities. He has composed liturgical music and enjoys singing. He is married to Marcie Golden and has two daughters, Elianna and Leah.

Rabbi Apothaker can be reached via email at drabbia@tbsohio.org.

Rabbi Benjy A. Bar-Lev, Assistant Rabbi and Director of Education

Rabbi Benjy Bar-Lev joined the rabbinic staff of Temple Beth Shalom in the summer of 2008. He serves as a Rabbi and the Director of Education for our congregation. Rabbi Bar-Lev says of TBS that, “our creative possibilities here are endless. The congregation can be justifiably proud of the community it has created—Temple Beth Shalom is a warm, inclusive and truly dynamic place!”

Rabbi Benjy (as he is known at Beth Shalom) was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He went to college at a small university in Kenosha, Wisconsin called the University of Wisconsin—Parkside. During his college years, he began working as a religious school teacher, a Hebrew teacher, Youth Director, a song-leader, and finally as Rabbinic Intern at a small synagogue in Kenosha called Beth Hillel Temple. He is also a life-long Jewish camper, and for the past sixteen summers has been a camper, counselor, program director, unit leader, administrator, and Camp Rabbi of a JCC camp called “Interlaken” in the North Woods of Wisconsin.

During his first year of Rabbinical School at HUC in Jerusalem, while taking classes, Rabbi Bar-Lev spent time teaching song-leading to a group of teenagers from Netzer, which is the NFTY High School Youth Group equivalent in England and Australia. Upon moving to Cincinnati he became the Youth Director at Temple Sholom, a job he had for four years. During his first two years in Cincinnati he also worked as the Yeshivat Noar Coordinator. Yeshivat Noar is a 7th and 8th grade program that combines junior youth group with formal Religious School classes. He taught, coordinated, and wrote curriculum for that program. During those first years he also began teaching in the Cincinnati Reform Jewish High School and wrote lesson plans and curricula for classes there as well.

Just prior to joining the Beth Shalom family, Rabbi Bar-Lev served as Rabbinic Intern and Youth Director for Temple Sholom in Cincinnati. As rabbinic intern led services weekly, taught adult education classes, officiated many lifecycle events, ran extensive adult programming, helped innovate worship experiences, coordinated and advised young family and young adult groups, attended to pastoral care, and helped shape the religious school.

Rabbi Bar-Lev is engaged to Dr. Lauren Cantor and will be married in the spring of 2010.

Rabbi Bar-Lev can be reached via email at rabbibenjy@tbsohio.org.

Rabbi Debbie Lefton, Education Identity Director

Rabbi Debbie Lefton is thrilled to be a part of the staff of Temple Beth Shalom. Rabbi Lefton first came to Columbus in 2001, after she was ordained as rabbi from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. She became one of three rabbis at Temple Israel in Columbus. Rabbi Lefton worked as an assistant rabbi as well as co-lead of Temple Israel’s religious school. She worked full-time for three years until she decided to concentrate on her growing family. Rabbi Lefton’s drive to serve the community as a rabbi has never stopped. She continued to teach at Temple Israel, spoke at different community events, and worked privately leading many life-cycle events. Rabbi Lefton says her family was drawn to Temple Beth Shalom. As a family, they visited the congregation many times and participated in family activities over the years.

Rabbi Lefton says she always knew she was going to be a rabbi. Growing up in Framingham, Massachusetts, Rabbi Lefton describes how she loved Shabbat as a child and reflects about the songs of her childhood. She says, “Every chance I would get, I would invite myself to different friends homes who celebrated long Shabbat dinners filled with traditional foods and songs.” And, “As a young teen, I would watch the rabbis on the bimah instead of talking to friends at bar/bat mitzvah services I would attend.”

Later, Rabbi Lefton studied religion at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, where she received a B.A. and wrote a thesis on the works of Elie Wiesel. In graduate school at Harvard Divinity School, Rabbi Lefton studied Hebrew Bible, receiving a M.T.S. Following her graduate program, Rabbi Lefton studied at HUC in Israel and later in Cincinnati where she was ordained in 2001. Her thesis for rabbinical school is titled “The Creation of the National Foundation of Temple Sisterhood.” Currently, Rabbi Lefton lives in New Albany with her husband David and their three vibrant children: Jeremy, Emily and Stacey. Rabbi Lefton has a passion for family, reading, and physical fitness.

Rabbi Lefton can be reached via email at rabbidebbie@tbsohio.org.

 

Selected High Holy Days Sermons from Rabbi Apothaker