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Today is February 25th, 2022. My name is Joshua Furman. I'm the curator of the Houston jewish history archive here at Rice University And today I'm joined by Rabbi Shaoul Osaki, Rabbi, how are you? Great, nice to be with you today. Excellent. So um it's an

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honor to be with you. Why don't we start by talking a little bit about um your childhood where you were born and the, you know, the formative experiences and the jewish education that you know shaped you into who you became as an adult. Wonderful. Well, I

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grew up in Los Angeles. Born 1950 right at the mid century mark, my parents moved to Los Angeles from Kansas city where my entire family is from. And uh, they, they began a family there and I was the first born. My uh my dad was a,

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began as a deputy sheriff in the L. A. County and was an ambitious man and uh became a court clerk and bailiff and started to go to school at night law school at night. And after five years he passed the bar on the first try and

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became a a District attorney and stayed in that field for the remainder of his career and really achieved some wonderful accomplishments, becoming rising to the highest level of civil service in the L. A. County Dea's office. So he had a really remarkable career and did some

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good things and always was a very strong encouragement to get out there and try and do your best. So he was a wonderful role model. My mom was just a sweet, lovely woman who was devoted to the family and to me and my two brothers. My

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sister came along 20 years later so she wasn't in the picture growing up but the three of us boys and took care of us, schlepped us everywhere that we needed to go, came to our basketball games and so forth and with that we played and so

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she was just a wonderful mother and both of them because they moved to Kansas city and we had no relatives in Los Angeles. The synagogue became really the anchor for our family and for our network of friends and so it was always a very central part

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of my life growing up. It was it was of course a religious connection. Uh our main focus was observing holidays and Shabbat. We were we were fairly regular attendees at synagogue and my mom was very active in the sisterhood that was very typical conservative upbringing in

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the san Fernando valley in Los Angeles. And um I enjoyed it, I did really well in Hebrew school and uh my rabbi decided that he would encourage me to continue on with the Los Angeles Hebrew High School which was a supplementary afternoon program over and above

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regular high school participation. So I was uh I attended through the the senior year of high school, it was a six hour a week program and uh it really gave me a very solid foundation by the time I got to college I was reading Rashi and

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and really was at a nice level of Judaic learning. So I went to U. C. L. A. For a year and a half then transferred to UC Berkeley. And um that was really uh of course we're talking about the mid sixties, late sixties. So I was

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in the thick of everything that was changing in very radical ways in society including Judaism. And so in 1963 when I had my bar mitzvah two months later, JFK was assassinated. And then when I was 15 I was listening to the men in the congregation talk

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about the Watts riots and their businesses down there and what was happening. So it was it was part of my formative understanding of how Judaism was part of the world that we lived in. And when I got to um to Berkeley of course was in the

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midst of the anti war movement and a lot of other dynamic changes. And so I became very active in the the Hillel which had been taken over by the radical jewish union. So it was Hillel in name only, but it was really the radical jewish union

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and by radical they meant going back to the roots of Judaism, not not necessarily radical politically, although we were in the in the milieu of everyone else, which was, you know, we were progressive antiwar uh students so that they really had a profound impact on me

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as I got tear gassed and marched and rallied for those causes as a jew because growing up, as I said, most of my upbringing associated Judaism with a religious observant model with one exception. In high school, I began to be active in the soviet jury movement

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and there were two men in uh in L. A. City, Fromkin and Xavier Ostrovsky who were the um leaders of the southern California, Counsel for the Union of Councils for Soviet jury. And I became active in that and part of the reason grew out of my

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hebrew high school activity, but it was a sense of coming to the realization of what the holocaust meant in terms of the slogan, Never again. So here we were experiencing a kind of a cultural spiritual genocide of the jewish people taking place in the soviet union.

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And I felt as a young Teen Jewish team that I had an obligation to say something about that speak up and act to help Soviet Jews, which I did ask you rabbi for people listening to this interview who are unfamiliar with the history of Refuseniks and

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the history of Soviet jury. And I'm very mindful as I'm sure you are, that we're having this conversation in February of 2022 as Russia has just invaded the Ukraine. Um give us some some brief background if you could as to what was happening in the soviet

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union at that time to the jewish community and some of the challenges and struggles that they faced as a way of then taking us to that trip that you took there as a college student. Well let me let me let me put it in the context

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of 1967 6 Day war. So prior to that there had been jews who were trying to go to Israel who were pro pro Israel, pro Zionist and were being discriminated against harassed by the soviet authorities. The movement was was beginning to build, but with 1967 it

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gave young Jews in particular the Soviet Union, a sense of identity, a sense of connection to the Jewish people and it really was a turning point in their activism. So uh they were applying for immigration, getting refused, getting fired from their jobs, some of them were

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being jailed and harassed in other ways. So it was a very critical moment. Um and by the way, just as an aside, so 1967 for me in the six day war, being in high school was also one of those proud moments as a jew. And subsequently

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it, it was like jewish is beautiful as well as black is beautiful and uh I ended up a couple of years later when I got to college, I started using my hebrew name, which I had used obviously in synagogue life in the Hebrew high school, but

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I took on my Hebrew uh given name birth name and let my my english name uh disappear, which was a difficult reality for my family, but everybody got used to it pretty quickly. So I became shovel Full time as opposed to part time Jewish. So uh

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by 67 as I was saying, so the movement now became much more visible. There was much more organizing in the states to to speak out on behalf of Soviet jury. In fact, I participated in a demonstration at the mercy of ballet that came to Los Angeles

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and a handful of us put on uh prisoner uniforms under our clothing and we went inside and periodic points during the ballet, we would stand up and take off our outer clothing and show our prisoner uniforms as a statement about what was going on and who

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these people actually represented not culture but oppression and persecution and of course we, we didn't get arrested, but we got field reported by the police as we had left. So, but it was, it was, it was an activist moment. So when I did get to Berkeley,

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one of the continuing interest I had was being part of the soviet jury movement. In addition to understanding now Judaism from a political perspective, demonstrating from an anti war perspective as a jew and also being attuned to the feminist movement, gay rights and everything else that

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was emerging at the time, really a heady period of history. So in 1971, I ended up organizing a trip to Israel with a friend Doug Kahn who subsequently became a rabbi as well. The two of us organized a Berkeley trip to Israel and so we went

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in the summer of 71 spent six weeks on a kibbutz toured. Israel was our first experience there, but both coming and going, our, our transit point was London and we connected with the World Union of jewish students because we wanted to take a two week tour

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into the soviet union to visit refuse next. And so Doug and I made those arrangements would just sponsored us and helped prepare us to go and made the connections. It turned out we were at a very amazingly critical point in the history of the Soviet jewry

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movement because in December of 1970 The Leningrad 11 trials had taken place. These were Jews who allegedly were going to hijack a plane to get out of the Soviet Union were caught, were in prison, two of them were sentenced to death and by June of 71,

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essentially, those trials had ended, and the the identified visible leadership of the soviet jury movement had been imprisoned, so No one knew really who their successors were and Doug and I were assigned to go in and meet this new uh leadership. And so we went for

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two weeks, we went to Moscow and then we went to evolve or Love Eve now uh Kiev and Odessa and then back to um Moscow, a 14 day trip. We ended up meeting some of the most prominent people who would become identified with the soviet jury

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movement like Vladimir slate pack and others. And we ended up meeting collecting information, phone numbers and data on the new refusing leadership which we brought back to London when we were finally able to get out of the soviet union. Were you, were you followed at that

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visit by by KGB agents? I mean, did you ever feel any kind of fear or concern for your safety? Absolutely. We in Moscow, it was not apparent love of. We had no contact. So we just toured the city. But when we got to Kiev, we ended

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up going to this apartment late at night Because during the day we would go on our assigned tours and see this city as as tourists would. But in the evening we had phone numbers, we'd go arranged to visit our refused contacts. So we went to this

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one apartment, there were about 11 or 12 people. They're very excited to meet us. And um actually it was a profoundly uh awakening moment for me because here I was in the Soviet Union in a, in a city where my ancestors had come from and I

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was meeting people who I'd never met before in my life. And yet these people, we're like family and everything I learned about the jewish people are one, we're all connected as a people historically. All of these were, these were abstract ideas. But here I was in

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these people's apartment, it was a living reality. These were, these were jews, these were my people and there was this instant bond, instant connection um and and as well as some pressure to to help these people Now now I had a face on what the jewish

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people looked like. And um anyway we, we met for hours in the evening and when we walked out of their apartment in the dead of night down the street two headlights flashed on. It was like a b movie you might see and it followed us all

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the way back to the hotel. Um The next day we went out to the Babi Yar near the massacre site of jews during World war two. And while we were out there we were surrounded at distance by six KGB agents and I ended up taking a

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picture of two of them as we were walking. I asked we had two refusing friends with us who took us out there and so the three of them stood in a line and I asked one of them to stand apart a little bit. So between him,

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I caught the two KGB agents in the background following us. So, so it was, yeah, I figured at that point all of our film, everything was gonna be confiscated when we left the airport. So there was no, there's no point not trying to be a little

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risky and and so I I have the pictures today. It's pretty amazing. Um uh babi Yar was also a profound experience because at the time they just had this small monument there that was dedicated to the victims of the great patriotic war, no mention of jews

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and yet there were 100,000 jews buried in the ravines there. Um so we we were there and then we went to Odessa and we met the sister of an imprisoned refuse nick and we're there to get information about her condition and her situation. And so we

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ended up coming back to Moscow and the leadership there had prepared petitions for us to smuggle out. I had a backpack and I in the evening I put all of them in the aluminum tubing of my backpack and smuggled them out and they were subsequently distributed

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to various communities and politicians and so forth. And did you also show at that time on that initial trip, did you take judaica items or other other goods into the soviet union or that came later? No, we did. That was one of the first things we

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did was we smuggled in LF mili, mother hebrew books, jewish books, literature and we also smuggled in believe it or not, some resistance songs that had been done that had been made in Leningrad smuggled out of the country and we smuggle them back in to give

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to the people in Moscow, it was easier to do it that way than for someone to carry these on their person because they risked, you know, decades in prison for having these. So when we came in I had my backpack again, my trusty backpack and I

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had put all of the material that we were smuggling in at the bottom, and then I put clothing on top, and then I filled it with travel logs, dying paperback books. Just anything that had any kind of literature I could get. And when I went through

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customs, they opened the flap, all this stuff kind of cascaded out. And at the time they had to read and look at every piece of literature because it was anti soviet. They would confiscate it. So here the the border, the customs is looking through all this

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stuff and the lines backing up, the supervisor comes over gives them, you know hell for, you know, postponing everybody's arrival there and he just put his hand in, felt the clothes and then let me go. So we were able to sneakily get this stuff in which

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I distributed as quickly as I could. So I could get get it out of my position as well. Of course, we'll come back to the soviet union and you'll you'll return there later on. Um why don't we talk now about your decision to become a rabbi,

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How that came about. Well, it came about precisely because of this summer experience. So I had been vacillating between going to law school and emulating my dad's career, which I had a very strong interest in politics and, and what was going on in the world. And

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I thought that might be a great career in avenue, But I had this very strong Jewish side to me, this identity that now was buttressed with having been in Israel for the first time, very heady experience in 1971, after the six day war, and um, also

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now this profoundly transformative experience in the soviet union. So that kind of tipped the scales for me going into the Rabbit yet. Um, but I, I really have mixed feelings about it because I didn't, I didn't really want to be the traditional pulpit rabbi that was

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pastoral that gave nice sermons and was sort of a role model of, of a nice religious persona, but disconnected from the rest of the world. And I struggled with that and I thought, well, I'm going to go into the Rabbit, I will get the jewish foundation

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of learning that I need to do whatever I want in the jewish world. And being a rabbi is, to me, was sort of the highest level of leadership that one could could be in in the jewish community. So I thought, well, I'll see where it takes

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me. I wasn't really interested in the pulpit at the time. And uh, as it turned out, I ended up going into Hillel and being on campus for uh 5.5 years, Which was a great experience uh started at Washington University and then came here, founded the Houston

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Hillel in 1979. And it was only 55 years later, I'm sorry, 3.5 years later since I got here, that things took a turn and I ended up going to bristol um and becoming the rabbi there. But uh Hilo was was a wonderful experience and it was

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a challenge coming here in 1979. Since there had been no Hilo, there had been a part time counselor ship, but no full time uh program. And the federation of jewish community understood that there were thousands of jewish kids on campus is here and they needed, they

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needed full time dedicated programming and attention. And so they directed the funds to make that happen. My challenge was starting from scratch, building a hill out of nothing. We had a small little office at the 80 Bruce Religion center at U of H. And that was

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it. Uh there was really no sense of a jewish presence on campus at U. Of H or here at Rice? And so that was my task was to build a program. So how did you, how did you go about doing it? What were some of the

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programs and initiatives that you tried and what was, what was the reaction from, you know, students at Rice and U of H at the time to the presence of Hilo. Well you have two different populations. So I had a further challenge. So the U. Of H

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was a commuter population and the Rice were residential students. So very different types of programming for for both my my task at U. Of H, which had the bulk of the jewish student population in town, was to first of all just establish a presence to let

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them know that Hilo was here, that now there was a serious engagement of jewish life on campus that was going to take place and that they had, they had a they had a rabbi and they had a venue now to identify and and celebrate the jewish

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life. So that took two to form. So it took the form of, Okay, we're gonna do high holiday services and other holiday services. So we were for the first time on the campus, we put up Asuka outside of the 80 Bruce Center, which was a little

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scary because here you put the structure up on the lawn outside and you don't know whether it's going to be there the next day or so because nobody knows what Asuka is and you have people who are not the friendliest to jews. We, there was a

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lot of anti Israel sentiment on the campus, The Palestinian groups were very active and so there was a kind of a hostile environment. So we went about doing the traditional thing. So holiday programming, Shabbat services, jewish studies classes and so forth. Um and then then we

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do lunch and learns which were a vehicle for people to come and have lunch and talk about something that was topical or current and to build community. The other point was to establish a presence and that was using what what pillows uh advocacy part is and

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to go out and fight anti Semitism and anti Israel propaganda. So we started setting up tables, counter demonstrating. And that of course heightened our profile significantly. So people started to be aware that we were there, we were we were serious and we started attracting students and

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it was it was quite uh it was just it was a wonderful thing to to see it blossom and and and emerge. One of the things that we did that got us a lot of attention was we showed on campus the documentary film, Death of a

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Princess. This was a video about the beheading of a princess in Saudi Arabia because she had allegedly committed adultery. And it was very controversial. It was banned on campus by the U. Of H. Because of their ties to Saudi Arabia. Their funding from arab countries. They

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didn't want this embarrassing uh film being shown. I got a Pirated copy of it and uh reserved a big hall and we filmed it and and we had the news media from the city come. We had we packed the auditorium, it was it was quite a

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in your face event, but it put us on the map as well. And um it showed that we were, we were there and we were serious. Rice was, was a little different challenge because people were living here and they were um busy with a lot of

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things on campus as well. But we started to have programs again, lunch and learns were really popular. I bring cold cuts and everything and everybody would eat for, you know, on on hills tab. They contributed a few bucks maybe. Um, but again, it was, it was

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sort of saying we're here, we're jewish, be proud and there's a presence here and a place for Judaism on this campus and we want you to be part of it. So, so it it took off. Yeah. And we have the scrapbooks from Houston Hillel from those

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years are in the collections of the archive and they've been digitized so we can go back and look and the details. It was, it was fun to look at those and to remember some of the programs and activities that we did. It was um, tell us

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now about the shift to becoming a pulpit rabbi at congregation brith shalom. It wasn't something that I had envisioned and I had a somewhat of an antipathy for because of just my own upbringing and, and well my my childhood rabbi was was a fine man and

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I respected him highly. He wasn't, he wasn't the kind of leader that I projected myself to be? So I just, I was real hesitant about moving towards the pulpit, but in 1983 I had envisioned moving from the 80 Bruce Center and Building a Hilo Center and

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there was some property that was owned by Gil Gertner of blessed memory on Cullen boulevard as you entered the university. It's now Wendy's, I think, but he had the property and I found out about it. But unfortunately too late, he had already donated to the university

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And so I missed an opportunity to have the land and then to be able to fundraise for the building. So at that point it was a little discouraging and 83 was the recession that took place here. So the prospects of building the Hillel Center were pushed

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way way into the distant future And I was a little discouraging. I wanted really, I was, you know, it's 30, 30 years old. I was filled with energy and enthusiasm and I wanted everything to happen immediately. So at that time it turned out that Rabbi Paskowitz

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was leaving brit shalom, they were looking for a new rabbi. They were unsuccessful in attracting anyone to come to Houston because the, and I'm a west coast snob. But the east coast snobs uh, saw Houston as sort of the meat bar, the desert, the wilderness. What

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kind of jewish life is there in Houston. What, why would I want to move to Houston And they couldn't find anyone to come and take the pulpit, which at the time I think they had about 250 families and it was in a in a baptist church

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facing north the sanctuary. So it wasn't exactly the most appealing pulpit around. And so they were having problems finding anyone. My secretary, Sylvia and the president of british alone at the time, Lorraine Brown were best friends and they were having a conversation and I think Lorraine

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said, well we're trying to think out of the box who might be available. And Sylvia said, well Rabbi Osaki might be interested. So one thing led to another and I ended up moving there. I had also just recently got married, we were thinking of having kids

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and it just, it was the more adult approach to supporting a family and you know, finally growing up and being being, you know, an adult. So I made the move over to the synagogue, which was very challenging because I was succeeding Herbert Moskowitz, whose I would

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say his his um deepest interest was promoting the jewish Theological seminary. He he saw himself as a scholar Rabbi seminary was the seat of jewish scholarship and the conservative movement. So that was what his rabbit it was about. He succeeded Rabbi Kahane moshe Kahane who was

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the first rabbi and was there for a number of years until he had a heart attack and had to retire. Um and he was he was the year european mystical persona followed by the JTS scholar rabbi. And here I was coming in as a 32 year

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old rabbi with no real pulpit experience. I had been a a student rabbi for Harold show wise at valley Beth Shalom in um in Encino California and he was one of the preeminent conservative rabbis and a very dynamic leader. I really admired him tremendously and I

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had done two years in new york uh as a student rabbi for Rabbi Jack Stern, I ended up going by the way to h you see, Hebrew in college, not jewish Theological Seminary. Even though I was a thoroughbred conservative raised ju um because in 1972 to

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go to jewish Theological Seminary was to go to a place where the old guard rabbis professors, we're basically modeling you in their image which was of the past, it was a generation behind and so they pretty much said this is how you practice Judaism, this is

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what you believe, this is what you think. And I really having come off four years of college and graduated from Berkeley was not of the mindset to have someone tell me how to think and how to believe and how to practice. So H. U. C. Was

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very open and permissive in terms of the spectrum of who their students were. So I felt I actually was a conservative jew in a reform seminary which was a kind of an interesting experience, but nonetheless, here I am at brit Shalom reform ordained, they made some

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bylaw changes to allow me to be there. Uh, I had to apply for membership in the Rabbinical Assembly, the conservative movement's body of rabbis, which I did, that allowed me to take the pulpit and eventually became a member of the Rabbinical Assembly and so forth. But

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um here I was trying to figure out what my rabbit it was going to be about and to somehow meet the expectations of the congregation, which was, You're supposed to be 30 years old, but you're supposed to have 30 years of experience at the same time.

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And so I was on this very steep learning curve. But the initial challenge was to get past the healing that the congregation kept telling me they needed to do after the departure of Rabbi Paskowitz. Now, I wasn't in particular need personally of any healing. I was,

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I was energetic, enthusiastic, I had all sorts of things that I had to do and wanted to experiment with. And so I just nodded at their healing and and said, okay, well, the best approach to healing is to get people involved in new activity, new ideas

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and new challenges and that's what I said about doing it. Reshaped committees created new committees started new programs and got people involved and within six months they pretty much forgot about their healing, they were healed, they threw down their crutches and we moved forward with with

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great enthusiasm and it was in that first year that I took the group, the this next group to the Soviet Union. So yeah, so, um, my enthusiasm for the soviet jury movement translated into okay, simulator is the time to take a group to the soviet union.

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So I sent out, you know, and the invite to the congregation join me for a trip to the soviet Union to meet refuseniks, Sandra Weiner graciously and generously underwrote under um underwrote my uh, travel and all my expenses and was going to join us. But unfortunately

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the last moment couldn't uh, we went with six other members of the congregation, so their total seven of us and we went to Moscow and we went to Leningrad. Those were the two ST Petersburg, the two places on our itinerary. And we met refused next. And

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we met people there, albeit this was much later than 1971 when I first came in 1983. So it was still pretty much very, very serious movement and people were still needing that kind of attention because it wasn't until really um, well, 79 was a turning point,

00:34:26.430 - 00:34:43.470

but within within a few more years, the immigration movement pretty much opened as the soviet Union started to collapse. Um, but it was still a pretty tense time for soviet jews, a lot of persecution still happening. And um, our visit was was a really significant one.

00:34:43.480 - 00:35:04.850

Um and and this was the first uh group in the in Houston to go to the soviet union. So they came back and Joyce Gilbert and um Mallory Robinson and Helen Dow and the bucks, they all uh formed Houston action of soviet jury and started to

00:35:04.850 - 00:35:23.870

promote the uh the activities that were required to get support for the soviet jury movement. And they were very successful and very passionate about their work and my job was to create an advisory board. So I ended up having the responsibility of getting the letterhead with

00:35:23.870 - 00:35:43.890

all the names of the governor, Mayors, state leaders, all on the Congress, people all on this stationary. It was it was remarkable, we had a really powerful group of advisory members who signed on to the stationary and supported us. So it was a very successful movement.

00:35:43.890 - 00:36:03.500

And then several years later 1987 we went and participated in the March in Washington for Soviet jury. Yeah. Let me actually back up and go ahead About that, that 83 trip because it's now your second visit. So what what has changed from the 1970s to the

00:36:03.500 - 00:36:19.490

19, do you still have to have like an official tour itinerary? And then at night you we kind of, we did, we did record things. Yeah, we did, it was the same same basic format, but there was less tension. The Soviet jury movement wasn't something that

00:36:19.490 - 00:36:41.380

was now, um so forbidden that any kind of contact would put people in prison. When I went in 71, the people that I met with were targeted and marked anytime you get a western visitor, you're on their list and you move up the list if you're

00:36:41.380 - 00:37:01.540

already on the list of, you know, being being a target. So it was, it was a little bit more relaxed. Uh people had by that point, more opportunity actually to um meet other uh people who were looking to to leave. And there were groups formed, we

00:37:01.540 - 00:37:18.920

went to the synagogue on Arkhipov a street and met people there and it was just a little less tense. People were more, they were more hopeful and optimistic of getting out. So it was a different tone, but there was still that sense of urgency. You mentioned

00:37:18.930 - 00:37:39.130

a few minutes ago the connection to Simchat Torah being an important holiday for soviet jews in an important moment. Take us there. Because what, what was that about? What was that scene like Simchat Torah at the synagogue? It was, it was amazing because this was the

00:37:39.130 - 00:37:59.080

time where everyone came out of the woodwork and gathered on Arkhipov a street up and down this long street in groups and the synagogue inside was packed. We went inside as well. Um it just it was a time of gathering. The focus was Simca celebration of,

00:37:59.090 - 00:38:17.990

it was sort of a defiance in a non aggressive way, saying we're here, we're jews, we're proud and you can't ever change that. So the Kremlin allowed this to go on effectively. They gave the soviet jews this, they didn't they didn't really have any choice. People

00:38:17.990 - 00:38:34.350

came out, they the only choice would have been to arrest everyone and uh sweep everyone off the streets and they chose not to do that. Was there was there a formal religious service or was it more of a gathering with singing and inside the traditional services

00:38:34.350 - 00:38:48.730

were taking place and we went in and observed that for a while. But on the outside it was it was sort of like a big gathering of people sort of renewing friendships, checking in with each other, just being together, just having, it was just a very

00:38:48.730 - 00:39:07.110

celebratory mood and of course you had KGB people all over, you know, observing and watching. Um but the people that we had met in one group, we got, we saw people from the other groups there, so we were able to really connect a lot of the

00:39:07.110 - 00:39:21.740

people that we saw together as well. So it was it was really an exhilarating experience. It was unlike anything we had ever experienced in terms of celebrating Simcha Torah here in the States and when we came back, that was the program that we decided we would,

00:39:21.750 - 00:39:41.690

we would do, we would emulate Simcha Torah for the congregation and give them a taste of what it was like to be there. So we transformed the pulpit again, the baptist church facing north. We transformed it to look like the synagogue, uh the great synagogue on

00:39:41.690 - 00:39:57.930

Arkhipov a street and we had the blessing for the czar and we had everything just like it was inside. And then when people came to the uh the interests of of of british Columbia come into the services and this program, we had people who were dressed

00:39:57.930 - 00:40:14.670

up like KGB agents and they asked people for their passports and if they didn't have a passport, they gave him a passport. So the passport of course had jew in it and so forth. So people had this sense of, okay, they needed to hold on to

00:40:14.670 - 00:40:34.230

this for the program. So we did a program and a presentation and then we showed slides and so forth at a at a dinner afterwards. So it was a pretty momentous program. Why don't we stay on that theme now and tell us about freedom sunday. Tell

00:40:34.230 - 00:40:51.630

us about the rally in Washington D. C. And how how your role came about in organizing the Houston contingent to go there. Well, the call came out from the national offices to encourage people to come from all over the country to participate in the rally. I

00:40:51.630 - 00:41:08.660

don't know what they anticipated the attendance would be, but I think it grew too close to a quarter of a million. Eventually came of course people from within several 100 miles of Washington D. C. Were expected to be there in mass. But outlying areas the west

00:41:08.660 - 00:41:24.730

coast and so forth. It was all another matter because that required people flying in. So they we we discussed it at the CRC meeting. I remember this and people were a little hesitant about well maybe a few people will get on a plane and go and

00:41:24.730 - 00:41:48.580

I said why don't we charter a plane? Well there's 120 seats. How are we going to get 120 seats? And this this by the way sort of was my disappointment or frustration with jewish leadership in general and specifically in Houston was there was always a sense

00:41:48.580 - 00:42:10.180

of Maybe maybe we shouldn't go out on the limb that far. Maybe we shouldn't do that. You know it's sort of that remnant of the Shah still mentality from the south that permeated Houston up until the I'd say the 70s, early 80s. And I'm sitting at

00:42:10.180 - 00:42:31.100

this meeting I'm thinking to myself There's 30 40,000 Jews here we can't get 120 to go to Washington. Really. So I said I will take two thirds of the seats on the plane if the rest of the jewish community can get a third it's a go

00:42:32.820 - 00:42:51.890

and of course as I often did I then sat down for a moment and thought okay I'm on the hook for two thirds of the seats on this plane. How am I going to do that? And I decided I'm gonna offer every high school kid in

00:42:51.890 - 00:43:09.040

the synagogue a free trip on this plane because I want them to be in a demonstration. Like I was in college. I want them to feel the excitement that the amazing sense of, of jewishness that comes out of being in a mass gathering of jews, This

00:43:09.040 - 00:43:23.230

will be an experience that they will remember forever. So I said, okay, I want all the high school kids to come with me. And there was about 25 or 30 of them that different ages and some some even from the college and I said, come on

00:43:23.230 - 00:43:40.910

board And I said, I will pay for your seat. It's $200 a seat, but I will pay for it unless you want to donate from anywhere from 0 to 200, you can help to offset the cost, but otherwise you can go for free. So I did.

00:43:40.920 - 00:43:52.810

So then a couple of the parents wanted to come, other people wanted to come. So I filled up my seats real quickly. No problem. And the jewish rest of the jewish community got theirs together. What was funny though was so they get to, we get to

00:43:52.810 - 00:44:10.980

Washington, see we have a banner and we're all there, but nobody knows what to do. Well guess what? I've been tear gassed. I've been in demonstrations. I'm, I've got the experience. I said, okay, unfurl the banner, you guys get behind it over here, over here, over

00:44:10.980 - 00:44:29.500

here set everybody up because it's all about visibility, it's all about getting pictures, it's all about publicity. And so I set everybody up and we marched as the texas contingent with our, you know, hats and boots and everything else. We we were we were stand out

00:44:29.510 - 00:44:49.180

in the crowd, uh, contingent. So it was fun. Everybody had a great day. And when we came back we came back uh in the late afternoon just in time to come to the rally that the community was having here at Beth Israel and they had peter

00:44:49.180 - 00:45:06.550

of peter paul and mary as the, as the star performer at the, at the rally. And so we came in and we walked down the center aisle, they had seats reserved for us at the front. We all walked down the the aisle sat down and people

00:45:06.550 - 00:45:22.980

cheered and it was it was just an amazing welcome back, you know, from, from our time in Washington D. C. So it was, it was it was a great experience. That's incredible. You know, it's interesting to think about the soviet jury movement in hindsight and I'm

00:45:22.980 - 00:45:47.470

just wondering from the vantage point of Where we are in in 2022, you know, we live in such a polarized time. And when I when I read about the freedom sunday rally and the soviet jury movement. It's just hard to see today's american jewish community uniting

00:45:47.920 - 00:46:10.420

around any kind of issue in that way. I mean, God forbid if Israel were threatened in any serious way, you'd see that or some other catastrophic experience. It doesn't appear at the moment that the Ukrainian jewish community is in danger of being obliterated. It just seems

00:46:10.560 - 00:46:30.870

the entire Ukrainian population is, is going to be suffering seriously jews included, but not jews specifically. Um, so yeah, I would say the same thing. There's there's such a division in the jewish community in ways that there weren't even in the past in the past, the

00:46:30.870 - 00:46:50.610

division was 80% took the a pack pro Israel government line and the 20% of us who disagreed, we struggled to be heard in the community. That was, that was jewish. We are one slogan at the Federation. Um, but now we're much more fractured and I think

00:46:50.620 - 00:47:13.500

um the likelihood of coming around a single cause is wishful, wishful. Um so your involvement with the soviet jury movement is really just one aspect of your um, your Robinett and your career working towards social justice. So tell us about some of the other areas, some

00:47:13.500 - 00:47:38.310

of the other causes that you champion that you led, led efforts in during your time. So what again, when I came to the synagogue, I had a sense of I needed to transform the synagogue bristol um was a sleepy, yeah, a notable place in the community.

00:47:38.320 - 00:47:56.260

I mean, it was in the, in the shadows of the three big congregations. Emanuel Beth Israel and Beth you sure in United Orthodox we were just a step child to break off from years before. Uh, some of the adult Children told me they were embarrassed as

00:47:56.260 - 00:48:21.530

kids to say they were from brit shalom. They're just, they were just kind of a small, non distinct place. So my, my thinking was, they had great values. This congregation actually had a uh, membership growth limit. They had a 500 family cap on growth, which said

00:48:21.530 - 00:48:39.800

they wanted to be a family focused participatory congregation. They wanted to be engaged, but they just hadn't found the right way to do that. Either the right rabbi or the right formula, whatever it was. There's also the legacy of Rabbi Kahane, which I don't know if

00:48:39.800 - 00:48:57.950

that's something you wanna, you wanna address or not. But um, you know, his, his presence at the march in Selma is remains today for people who know about it. Part of the legacy of shalom as well. And that was one of his finer moments. But I

00:48:57.950 - 00:49:22.530

wouldn't say his rabbit was defined by that because when he came back to Houston, uh, I know he continued to advocate, but his his persona at the synagogue was of teacher, spiritual leader mystic. It wasn't, it wasn't activist. He wasn't an activist any longer. So he

00:49:22.530 - 00:49:45.240

had that bright moment in the sun, but that wasn't really what defines him except when you you ask, tell me about british shalom's social justice history that'll that'll certainly be mentioned. But there's a gap between that and then Osaki arrives on the scene many years later

00:49:45.250 - 00:50:02.650

and boom, we go to the soviet union. Um, and then all of a sudden the rabbis out there in the community doing all these various social justice programs. As an aside as a preface to that though, so I felt it was important to transform the congregation

00:50:02.650 - 00:50:23.960

on two levels. One was on the more traditional internal level. So there was some need to change religious practices to get things a little bit more contemporary. They had a seven a.m. Minion that was of the traditionalists. So they were the non egalitarian minion, which was

00:50:23.970 - 00:50:48.600

a little bothersome uh from me from my perspective, but the family service was fully egalitarian. And so I made some initial changes that were controversial um at the time, but in in retrospect were sort of no brainers in terms of why I did that, which was

00:50:48.610 - 00:51:04.440

we went from calling up cocaine, lavy, Israel to re showing Shania. And she she so we said to the families, you can call up anyone you want whatever order you want and they don't have to be Kohei necessarily if among them there's a cocaine then that

00:51:04.440 - 00:51:26.640

person will be re shown, but otherwise uh so that that that already set the tone for some that change was was in the wind and we began to do that liberalized that. Um the other change was the hiring of David proposes the cantor. So he was

00:51:26.640 - 00:51:48.960

a 26 year old out of work computer programmer whose father was a rabbi cantor, beautiful voice, new the new socks, new the phyllo, but had no formal training. So given the likelihood of us actually hiring an ordained cantor from JTS, which was minimal. Uh, he was,

00:51:48.960 - 00:52:10.440

he was wonderful. Came on board With me, I was 32, he was 26. We were like brothers. Initially got on really well and the two of us were really a good team on the pulpit. He was very um engaging in terms of participatory melodies and so

00:52:10.440 - 00:52:30.630

forth. People love coming for that. I raised hell in my sermons every Chavez, although my, my approach was friday night was politics, saturday morning was a traditional Davar Torah. So I took the Davar Torah and I made it topical but not not edgy. So that was

00:52:30.630 - 00:52:48.360

sort of the format, you come friday night be prepared on and fasten your seatbelt because you're gonna be going for a ride. Um and I took, you know, I took on the issues of the day. Um, so and I also on another level transformed the educational

00:52:48.360 - 00:53:13.160

system. So we created most side shalom which is the confirmation program, but on a, on a much more uh current topical basis. Um and engaged students there uh for sunny programs on current events and so forth? So we, we, we did some really good internal changes,

00:53:13.160 - 00:53:30.580

revamped holidays, um, poor and became an adult holiday, not just a kid's costume holiday. The first one was absolutely crazy. I came as queen Esther brought a lot of booze and that set the tone. It was a very cathartic release for the congregation. That's when the

00:53:30.580 - 00:53:47.140

healing, nobody talked about healing after after that. That was, it was kind of a fun thing. But yeah, it set the tone and then because I came in in on board full time in january, I had eight or nine months before the high holidays. Usually rabbis

00:53:47.140 - 00:54:04.420

come in august their first um presence in the congregation is the high holidays, the sermons, you know, everybody's judging you on your sermons. That's your first acquaintance with the congregation. I had eight months for people to get to know me beforehand. So by the time I

00:54:04.420 - 00:54:19.990

got to the high holidays, there wasn't this expectation that I had to give the blockbuster sermon of sermons, you know, to wow them and impress them. Um, I tried nonetheless, but you know, it was a little different pressure. One of the things that I did do,

00:54:20.000 - 00:54:37.000

which became a tradition and I have people to this day, call me and ask me what the word is on a cold night dre when you're supposed to give again this blockbuster sermon because the expectations is this is the most important day of the year and

00:54:37.010 - 00:54:50.030

I have to hear the greatest sermon and I thought, how do I get off of that treadmill? Because even if I give it to him, what do I do the following year and the following year after that? So how do I de escalate that and do

00:54:50.030 - 00:55:08.680

something that's meaningful but doesn't doesn't carry that kind of weight to it. So I came up with this idea of doing something simple, but yet hopefully meaningful. And that was to give a sermon on a word, one word. So I selected a word, gave a sermon

00:55:08.680 - 00:55:24.720

about that word and the other thinking of course, cynically was they won't remember my sermon anyway, even it was a blockbuster a week later, it's gone. It's out of their memory, a word they can remember, they can remember a word and you can use the word

00:55:24.720 - 00:55:47.680

all the way through the years, a kind of a thematic um teaching tool. So I started with humility and then I did um where's like said, loving kindness, civility, ambition, um Sadak a so forth. So every year I had a different word and uh people would

00:55:47.690 - 00:56:04.400

would during the year, what's the word going to be this year of which I of course had to tell them, I can't tell you because if I do then I have to, That's privileged information. So there was a little suspense and I started off I had

00:56:04.410 - 00:56:20.300

prepared an intro to my first word and I used that for the next 35 years, the same intro every year. So people knew and it was the power of the word. And here are the words from last year and the years before. So I did a

00:56:20.300 - 00:56:34.730

refresher, just mentioned the words to kind of connect them to the thing and then I would come up with the word for the year. And where did, where did the inspiration come? You know, for that? Well, as an example, I was in Calgary um subsequently as

00:56:34.730 - 00:56:55.430

the rabbi of Beth Said and they had these just horrific floods in june of 2013 and the the city came together, the congregation came together to help everyone. People were flooded out and it was really a traumatic event. So my word was resilience. So it was

00:56:55.430 - 00:57:16.870

born out of that experience of what people have gone through. So that was how I often model things um during the presidential election year, I did Civility and what does it mean to engage in honest disagreement? How do you do that without it devolving into name

00:57:16.870 - 00:57:37.540

calling and so forth. That was 2016. Yeah, that's a sermon. That remains timely. Yes, I could give it again. It was 2016 when former president trump was running for office. So, so that was sort of the way it was so point number one, I tried my

00:57:37.540 - 00:57:58.500

best to continually do things internally too facilitate the spiritual and religious growth of the congregation scholars and residents and so forth on the at the same time I was I wanted to position the synagogue to be a leader in the community and my sense was there

00:57:58.500 - 00:58:17.020

needed to be a strong jewish voice in Houston, the fourth largest city, a city of diversity, a city that had so many different voices, The jewish voice was present and the jewish voice was frankly muted. The senior rabbis of the three major congregations were very prominent,

00:58:17.020 - 00:58:38.140

very successful but they weren't actively engaged in the community perceptions notwithstanding. And when I say perceptions because whenever there was some media issue, they would go to the prominent three rabbis and they would give a comment on whatever was and that's that was perceived to be

00:58:38.160 - 00:58:59.960

okay. The jewish response. But that was just a rabbinic response and it was always sort of couched in, you know, rabbinic language but it wasn't the jewish community's response. So I sat as an example on the C. R. C. And I was a of course a

00:58:59.960 - 00:59:21.180

bit of a uh is the word pot stir. That's the community relations committee of the Federation at the time. So they would they would handle all of the public relations issues and put out statements and so forth and their modus vivendi was we bring in people,

00:59:21.190 - 00:59:44.510

we listen to them, we acknowledge the issue and then we sort of give them some lip service affirmation that we are sympathetic and will help them. But that never actually translated into anything. And it it finally built up to the point of I couldn't couldn't see

00:59:44.510 - 01:00:08.950

this. It was dishonest on some level. And lo and behold cesar Chavez comes to Houston during the great boycott and he comes to the C. R. C. And shows this unbelievably powerful propaganda video. It was propaganda. It was a powerful message about why to support the

01:00:08.960 - 01:00:27.320

great boycott with showing birth defects and everything you could imagine to to move people uh to be supportive. So we listen to this and everybody was again they were supportive. Yes yes yes we need to be you know concerned about this and so forth. So he

01:00:27.330 - 01:00:44.200

excuses himself and leaves. And then the conversation continues and I put up my hand and I said I move that we support the great boycott. It's like everybody looked at me like you're not supposed to do that. You're not supposed to actually you want us to

01:00:44.210 - 01:01:01.970

go on record here. And I said I move that we do that. So there was a debate of course and it was came to kind of a standstill and I said if I can get the Rabbinical association to support it will the CRC support it. And

01:01:01.970 - 01:01:19.010

there was sort of a begrudging yes well I happen to be the president of the H. R. A. At the time. So I sent out the the issue to the to my colleagues, we had a meeting, showed him the video and we went on record as

01:01:19.010 - 01:01:36.600

supporting the great boycott, went back to the C. R. C. They begrudgingly supported the great boycott. So that meant at brit shalom and I don't know about the other congregations I suspect not as much, but at brit shalom, no table grapes, no grapes, nothing. And we

01:01:36.610 - 01:01:58.920

were, you know, supportive of this. I think after I left grapes went right back on the table, but nonetheless nonetheless, for a number of years. So that was that was sort of my my cue in terms of social justice issues. So I became involved in the

01:01:58.930 - 01:02:21.220

gun control issues, anti capital punishment issues, um labor issues. My wife and I uh joined and we were on the front line walking with the leaders of the Labor Union for the Justice for janitors protest janitors downtown not getting the due wages and benefits that they

01:02:21.220 - 01:02:41.040

deserved. While the people in the upper suites were raking in, you know, million dollar bonuses and all. So we we supported that. Um and can I ask you specifically about the AIDS epidemic? Yeah. So thank you, I was gonna mention that. So uh we I was

01:02:41.050 - 01:03:00.340

I was active in many of these different issues, gay rights. So let me diverge to that one for a second. So I was involved in that and in particular the right to marry part of the issue. Um and I officiated co officiated with a recon socialist

01:03:00.340 - 01:03:18.580

rabbi at the first Um gay wedding here in town in 2000. So I had two members who were wanted to get married to women. And I co officiated with this reconstructionist rabbi at the time, a conservative movement didn't forbid us, didn't permit us, but didn't forbid

01:03:18.580 - 01:03:41.030

us. So in the absence of being prohibited, that was a leniency that allowed me to do it. So, were you still the rabbi, bro? I'm sorry. No, I was at Orthodox, this was 2,000 2000. Yeah. Um and they tried to tried to get a space at

01:03:41.040 - 01:04:04.860

the other synagogues and we're rejected. So the wedding was in a hotel, was in a hotel in Houston in Houston at the Warwick actually, which is interesting again, because the reform congregations that were pro gay rights and all the rabbis would not get involved or allow

01:04:04.860 - 01:04:34.440

their sanctuaries to be used. So, solo sassy went forth and did. So that was that was important. I also participated in some uh wedding ceremonies uh interfaith uh and just um community gatherings where they would have a right to marry uh event where couples would get

01:04:34.440 - 01:04:49.620

married by uh there was a priest and myself and some other ministers and we would sort of do a it was not a legal wedding, but we would do a ceremony for all of them, you know? And was there, was there, was there a backlash was

01:04:49.620 - 01:05:07.740

their criticism on the part of your colleagues and people in the community? Sure, absolutely. People that were opposed to gay people getting married and so forth, and but, you know, in terms in terms of me participating, they had to be jewish, so I didn't do interfaith

01:05:07.750 - 01:05:27.770

weddings, but I did gay, they're both jewish and you know, so from from a liturgical, did that involve creating new language for a tuba, or did that involve changing the for the wedding ceremony? Yes, yeah, we did both. We we sort of, the liturgy was gender

01:05:27.770 - 01:05:50.740

neutral, it was as best we could at the time, you know, subsequently a lot of this was was enhanced and developed with greater sensitivity, but it wasn't lost on people that what we were doing, and it was it was significant um and of course generated the

01:05:50.850 - 01:06:09.040

jewish herald, voice letters to the editor, you know, and so forth, but I'm sure yeah, did you have congregants with age that, that you knew personally and provided pastoral support to did? And that was of course, in the mid eighties, the big issue that scared the

01:06:09.050 - 01:06:28.410

heck out of people because there was a lot of misinformation, a lot of, a lot of prejudice and and so forth. But I was involved in an interfaith group and one of the projects was to start AIDS care teams at each house of worship and so

01:06:28.410 - 01:06:44.140

the christian community started to do this and you know, they kind of looked at me like, okay, well it's a jewish community to step up and I said, I will make every effort to create a care team at bristol. Um and so I proposed to the

01:06:44.140 - 01:07:00.570

board and I could see, you know, people's sort of, oh no, here goes the rabbi again, you know, this is really out there, rabbi, this is, this is, I don't know how this is gonna go down with the congregation. And I made the argument, a beak

01:07:00.570 - 01:07:22.860

or colima is a fundamentally central value of Judaism. Number two, we need to be compassionate, we need to help people understand that this is this is an issue that we need to be involved in. We're not immune from it as jews. Um there are jews that

01:07:22.870 - 01:07:42.500

have AIDS and will have AIDS and we need to educate our Children and so forth about jewish values about sexuality, not just health issues and Furthermore, I said, Look, we have at the time, I think we had 350 families I said if we can't get 14

01:07:42.500 - 01:08:02.490

people out of this whole congregation to do this, we need to rethink what we're about. So we had 14 people which meant to people every day went to visit this person that was assigned to us that had AIDS and we helped that person with light household

01:08:02.500 - 01:08:22.830

chores or grocery shopping, taking into a doctor's appointment, but more importantly, just being there and visiting and being supportive, being another person that was there because otherwise they're isolated. And it it really was a very traumatic time for people, notwithstanding the grim prognosis of the disease

01:08:22.830 - 01:08:41.550

itself. But um, yeah, so we did that and it became again like, oh yeah, you know, this, this is something we're really proud of. We did this and we were the first to do it and good on us and it became, you know, now another part

01:08:41.550 - 01:08:54.460

of yeah, we went to the soviet Union, we went, you know, we did this, we did this, we did this and these are the kinds of things that sort of built up that legacy of, yeah, we're there and and as a result the congregation started to

01:08:54.460 - 01:09:11.490

attract people. I mean, we doubled the membership in two years. That's that's a pretty amazing accomplishment. It is, it is. And I know that your time brit shalom also coincided with a time of rapid growth, not only for Houston, but for the city's jewish community with

01:09:11.490 - 01:09:32.980

the influx of jews from South africa and from the east, former soviet Union and the soviet Union. Absolutely! So, and we were, we were placed that attracted these newcomers. The south Africans were interesting because they only knew Orthodoxy growing up. So they thought you had to

01:09:32.980 - 01:09:54.130

go to United Orthodox, that was just where you would go and then of course their actual jewish lifestyle practices weren't Orthodox. So they were sort of out of water there and they discovered, oh, there's this conservative movement where you can actually be traditional, but it's got

01:09:54.130 - 01:10:17.630

to be yourself. Um, and nobody is going to pass judgment on you. So we started to attract South Africans. Um, my ex wife was from Moscow. So that was a draw for people who, you know, wanted a place where the Robinson spoke Russian and grew up

01:10:17.630 - 01:10:43.730

in Russia and so forth. So there was an affinity there and my activism was plus, so we, we attracted former soviet jews, but mainly we attracted young families, we were dynamic, We were engaging, we were relevant and people started to come, we basically plundered families thirties

01:10:43.730 - 01:10:57.250

to mid forties from the major congregations were all coming over to us. So we grew, we hit the 500 family limit and then we had to figure out what to do, Do we change it or do we keep it or what do we do? Because the

01:10:57.250 - 01:11:17.250

idea was at that point we would see it. Another congregation, The lawyers in the congregation came up with a great Jewish solution. Of course they said, well it says families, so singles aren't families, so we don't count singles towards the 500 limit. So we actually had

01:11:17.260 - 01:11:44.180

650 membership units Of which 500 were families. So any, yeah, it was on the Razor's edge there. It was pretty, pretty clever. But um, it allowed us to have a very diverse congregation and a very active one and we were doing really well. Um I I

01:11:44.190 - 01:12:04.760

don't I don't really talk about me and my reputation much, but I was listed in Houston Metropolitan magazine at the time as in this special article they do once a year, the power people in Houston. So I was listed as a person to watch. So, you

01:12:04.760 - 01:12:20.210

know, I was in my early thirties and these were the people, the power people were all the, you know, people in their fifties and sixties and the corporate giants and the politicians and all of that. But here was, you know, little Rabbi Osaki making its way

01:12:20.210 - 01:12:37.290

up into being influential. I was part of the american leadership forms. Class class eight. So I was a senior, I'm a senior fellow of that. So that was that was an honor to be included in, in that cohort for 1990. So I was, I was active.

01:12:37.300 - 01:12:58.130

Things were always challenging and and nobody fell asleep, you know, we were we were keeping people on their toes and and people appreciated. I mean, I had some very, very strong opposition. One of the ways that I knew my high holiday sermons on Israel was on

01:12:58.130 - 01:13:18.570

Mark would be when certain people got up and walked out. That was that was, you know, that was a respectful way of saying Rabbi, we disagree with you from the bottom of our, our inner bones were just so far in the opposite direction, but we had

01:13:18.570 - 01:13:49.430

respectful conversations. What changed, however, was unfortunately my relationship with the cancer and what changed after he got married was an encouragement to find his stardom I guess. I don't know to find his, his prominent role in in life in, in in the synagogue and beyond, which

01:13:49.780 - 01:14:08.130

was, was nothing that I was opposed to, he was very talented. Um he learned his trade really well in the first few years and he was now being becoming active in the candidates assembly and all all of which and I had no problem with. But what

01:14:08.130 - 01:14:33.730

that meant was transforming a participatory engaging service into a kind of a concert hall and that was disturbing because it changed the nature of sitting in the pew from being a participant to being a spectator. It was contrary to the very fundamental values of the variation

01:14:33.730 - 01:15:03.430

when it's set out as a family kind of congregation. So that that continued and we, we had Cantor's concerts which are typical of most congregations but everything just started to go down this focus on music and the choir and we had high holiday services that became

01:15:03.680 - 01:15:27.680

productions and people couldn't sing with Congress with the choir. I mean it was there were performances so it was really changed in the nature of having people gather as a community every Shabbos and for the holidays and created a lot of tension. And pretty soon the

01:15:27.680 - 01:15:46.460

congregation was getting divided over this issue. I mean, I would rather have been divided over some of the issues that I was putting out there in the social justice issues. You know, at least least least let's disagree on something of substantive value. This was format style.

01:15:46.470 - 01:16:11.530

It was, was form over function and it was what he needed to do was to go to a large congregation where that was what they prefer. But this was still a Hamish place. And uh, it just things just went south. And uh, finally in 90 for

01:16:11.540 - 01:16:32.870

his contract came up for renewal. We had staggered contracts and there was a lot of lot of debate about that about under what conditions would we want him to renew. And so I put out some things some of the people on the executive committee did. But

01:16:32.880 - 01:16:50.690

there was a lot of contention about his role and the place for music and all of that in the synagogue. And one of the causes of my contract was that he was that I supervised him, which I had been essentially unable to do for a couple

01:16:50.690 - 01:17:11.050

of years since he was fairly defiant of any direction. Um, at that point. So the, the couple people from the executive committee came to me and said, we want you to relinquish the clause in your contract and let the board supervise him. And I knew that

01:17:11.050 - 01:17:32.870

was a mistake on my part to make. But I really was up against the wall. And I I conceded, and of course, just as I knew he to use a colloquial phrase, ate their lunch and they ended up being so frustrated that they non renewed his

01:17:32.870 - 01:17:54.550

contract. And of course that put everything out into the public and just, it was like pouring gas on a fire. And so he he left, he went to Beth You Sharon just down the street. Now he could have just done that quietly and as a mench.

01:17:55.080 - 01:18:20.500

But no, he and his supporters came back to non renew me, which they succeeded in doing a year later, stacking the board, um, disregarding the rabbinic search committee or re election committee's recommendation that I be renewed. And uh they, because they stacked the board, they barely

01:18:20.510 - 01:18:42.030

uh we're able to non renew me And we went to a congregational vote, I lost, I needed 66%, I lost, I think I had 62%. So I was out. That was it done. That was 1995, After almost 13 years of the congregation and taking the congregation

01:18:42.030 - 01:19:13.420

from a in the shadow nondescript synagogue with a sanctuary facing north and a baptist church to the most dynamic place, the place to be the synagogue to be in Houston and they just trashed it. So I was out. And the only logical thing for me to

01:19:13.420 - 01:19:30.790

do was to of course start doing a search for another pulpit. And the R. A. Was not uh willing to let me do a break off congregation because they didn't want to break up congregation that was not not their solution things. So I went out and

01:19:30.800 - 01:19:49.490

looked around congregations and everywhere I went I was blackballed by the leadership of the congregation. They had they had turned it into something personal, which I already was personal, but now it was personal on another level, they were trying to be punitive. So everywhere I went,

01:19:49.500 - 01:20:10.670

I was getting just these horrible comments from the leadership. In fact one congregation, the the search team said they were so unprofessional, so unethical, so unmentioned and un jewish that they came to the conclusion that the leadership was the issue and the rabbi was actually, you

01:20:10.670 - 01:20:26.310

know someone that they should really take a serious look at and they ended up offering me the job. I didn't go because the R. A. Got wind of them blackballing me and as a result I was able to stay in town, they gave me permission to

01:20:26.310 - 01:20:42.320

start a break off which I did, which was or Hadash and that was that was a great experience in a whole different way it took me from okay here you are, this activist rabbi out there to okay now you have to build a congregation from ground

01:20:42.320 - 01:21:00.890

up. So I went back from the prophetic end to the pastoral priestly and I had to come back and say, okay, let's put all that external stuff on hold for a moment. Let's go back to the roots, Back to the radical jewish union. Let's get back

01:21:00.890 - 01:21:17.200

to the roots and let's let's figure out what kind of a congregation we want. Let's do the work, the religious and spiritual work to build a congregation And the people who were with you at the beginning of Orthodox, these were former British alone members or people

01:21:17.200 - 01:21:37.030

in the community. They were primarily people that came with me from British alone. So I took the eight wealthiest people and I took the 665 most active people in the education and all the other parts of the synagogue. So I really took and eviscerated the soul

01:21:37.030 - 01:21:53.670

of the congregation by taking them with me because they wanted they wanted an active dynamic place. There was about family, there wasn't a bad performance. So they came with me. So here was the challenge I said to the leadership, Okay, Where I have an office on

01:21:53.670 - 01:22:17.590

59, southwest freeway foreigners, We're renting space at seven acres Jewish home for the aged. We are in probably the least likely place that someone wants to go. I have an office where people have to go and park and it has nothing even remotely close to being

01:22:17.590 - 01:22:36.380

associated with the synagogue. How do we build a synagogue? Now? We have no building, we have no religious school. We have no teachers, we have nothing. We don't even have prayer books yet. So how do we build a synagogue? Said, the first thing I will ask

01:22:36.380 - 01:22:52.750

you to do is don't say, well, we'll just do what we were doing and we'll just replicate it. Here's an opportunity for us to build a congregation. The way we would like it to be. We have absolutely no restrictions, nothing inhibiting us from doing what we

01:22:52.750 - 01:23:17.170

want to do. Let's be creative. Let's think out of the box. So here we are at seven acres and we create Now I selected name or Hadash a new light because I was trying to come up with something that reflected new innovative thinking forward. And I

01:23:17.170 - 01:23:31.430

didn't want to have a break off name. Like brit shalom was actually a break off name. Okay. House of peace. Like you guys are all the ones who are nasty and so forth, but were the peaceful ones I have. I have a joke about the names

01:23:31.430 - 01:23:47.480

of breakaway congress. This is the place to insert it. But I mean, you with all due respect, you could make the case that a new light is a good breakaway name. And and they and they did. I realized later. Well, okay, we're the new light year.

01:23:47.480 - 01:24:04.680

The old light. Okay, so there's no way of getting a name that isn't. You know, Emmanuel God is with us. That's right. Absolutely. Or sharp acidic. You know, we are the righteous, you are the scumbags. So yeah, so tell us a little bit about, you know,

01:24:04.690 - 01:24:20.290

formulating the ethos of this new congregation, but then also, you know, finding a geographic home. So you know, for the first couple of years we were we're not going to get a building, we don't need a building, we're not going to focus on the building because

01:24:20.290 - 01:24:34.940

that brings us up back into the trap of okay, we have to pay for it. We have to administer upkeep operation. Let's focus on us. We have an environment where everything's taken care of for us. We don't have to worry about any of that. We just

01:24:34.940 - 01:24:58.390

show up and leave. So we did. So we went back to what's really important. We were lay lead and I had people in the congregation give sermons. Okay. It wasn't just me, it wasn't rabbi has to give the sermon so I would lead once a month,

01:24:58.400 - 01:25:15.790

a alternative service called the Penny or Minion. And this was for kids. It was like junior congregation, but it wasn't for kids, it was multigenerational. So anybody that wanted to learn about the service and how, how the prayers and so forth would come to that. So

01:25:15.790 - 01:25:29.140

we had adults, we had kids of all ages and we did a service together, we learned the prayers. I had this big road map that I had and we went through it over the course of the year, each section and we analyzed prayers and talked about

01:25:29.140 - 01:25:45.710

prayers and did things and it was, it was really very cool and meanwhile the adults were doing the service. They were highly proficient. I took all the people from religious practices, they knew how to dive and they knew how to do everything and it was great.

01:25:45.720 - 01:26:05.790

So then we said, okay, well how do we do education? How do we, how do we teach the congregation, people, the kids, adults. So it came up with the concept for the bio project. So this fundamentally shifted the onus and responsibility from the synagogue to the

01:26:05.790 - 01:26:27.470

home in a, in a traditional synagogue setting, there's a religious adult education committee and they say, okay, we're gonna teach medieval jewish history and we're gonna teach american jewish history and they're gonna be on Tuesday night from 7 to 8. And if you want to learn,

01:26:27.480 - 01:26:44.420

come now, if you're not interested in those topics, you don't show up. Oh I'm sorry, I have my bowling league at that time. I can't make it on Tuesday, I don't get anything either. That's it. Okay, come to a lecture every, so every once in a

01:26:44.420 - 01:27:05.500

while and you'll learn something on that topic if you're interested, otherwise you get no jewish learning. So we reversed it, we said, okay, we're going to design a curriculum a jewish learning and living plan for every household and it's up to the household to decide what

01:27:05.500 - 01:27:23.180

they want in that plan. So we created the kind of shell the format for it. And then people said, well, okay, this, this, this year, we want to learn about how to make Shabbat real in our home. That was their learning plan. And we would, the

01:27:23.180 - 01:27:39.650

synagogue would provide resources and instruction if needed to help them do that and we would monitor them and and participate with them. Did you have an educational director assisting? You know, I was it was it we were no budget, no money, We were lean and mean.

01:27:39.660 - 01:27:59.110

Um, so it was, it was, you know, I had some other people in the congregation were knowledgeable people, um, and they helped as well. But uh basically everybody had a learning plan and it was really exciting because it said, okay, you have no excuse, It's at

01:27:59.110 - 01:28:15.320

your convenience, it's in your home, you can do it when you want, how often you want and the contents of what you want. So you can't say no, I don't, I can't go there or can't be there. So how did you, how did you include accountability

01:28:15.320 - 01:28:29.320

in other words? How could you be sure that families were actually following through on the, because we were in contact with them constantly with the resources and what's your next step? So we had, we had all the documents and the material so we knew what their

01:28:29.320 - 01:28:44.720

next step was. So, you know, the next step is in january, we want to do this. So january, we make sure we connected with them to see the progress. That's fascinating. We're beginning to run short on time. So I want to ask you about the merger

01:28:44.720 - 01:29:00.130

between or Hadash and and Beth um if I could Yeah, so or he was doing really great. It was exciting. Um We also were involved in the Space Tour a project that was really just, and there's a video out now so people can learn about that

01:29:00.130 - 01:29:18.360

if they want. Um and so we were, we were doing pretty well, but we were we're hitting a plateau. So we had grown, but the plateau was gee you don't have a building so you can't really grow. But if you get a building, then we don't

01:29:18.360 - 01:29:38.850

have enough resources to do that at the moment. So we're sort of in this polling pattern Beth on who had been out there for 25 years was in West Houston. Sorry. Uh they were going through another rabbinic transition, one of many that they had done. They

01:29:38.850 - 01:29:59.060

had the reputation of being the revolving door for rabbis and they came up with the idea of merging and I thought, wow, that actually might be an answer. We will find a place halfway between each, each location, they'll sell their building, they will have their assets

01:29:59.070 - 01:30:24.200

and we'll develop a plan to build our own synagogue within five years, but will merge. We'll have more critical mass, more resources and it sounded on paper really good. The caveat was beth OMs reputation revolving door rabbis And they hadn't really grown even though West Houston

01:30:24.200 - 01:30:45.640

had grown, they hadn't grown in 25 years significantly. So there are a lot of red flags. Anyway, we got the merger together, so we took Beth um and or Hadash and we got or um or a me and that was the new name of my people,

01:30:47.250 - 01:31:13.370

a merger name, not a break off name merger name. And so we, we started out, unfortunately what we ended up doing was bringing in their sort of traditional side, which was religious school classrooms, teachers and our bio project kind of took a hiatus. I'm sorry to

01:31:13.370 - 01:31:31.520

say it really needed to be developed as a model. So we uh we had a storefront in on will crest and we were there for a couple of years and then we made a serious effort to fundraise and with help of bob strudler who was a

01:31:31.520 - 01:31:52.890

prominent member of blessed memory. Um we were able to actually put together the money to build a new facility which we did and we took the two torahs that were significant to each congregation, the ouster Alice tour from Beth um and the space tour from or

01:31:52.890 - 01:32:12.420

had it and we use that thematically in the building. So the facade of the army outside is of the ouster list synagogue. So that was a way of saying you enter the past through that portal and you come into the synagogue and in the ark was

01:32:12.420 - 01:32:32.770

a prominent place for the space Torah, here's the future. And we had a lot of good things going for us. But there was all all this underlying tension from Beth um they were they were really anti rabbinic, which is why they were having a revolving door.

01:32:33.080 - 01:32:56.620

And later on bob strudler unfortunately passed away in 2007 complications from post polio syndrome that he had. And once he died, he was, he was like the emperor. He kept all of the factions in check. When he died, the empire fell apart and Bethan went back

01:32:56.620 - 01:33:15.300

to its former contentious and toxic self and came at me with all sorts of complaints and this and that. And it was like, why am I dealing with this folks? We have this new synagogue out here, we have everything going for us, let's be positive. Let's

01:33:15.310 - 01:33:41.310

let's let's do good things, let's not be petty and be contentious about everything. And it just they started to drive away our people in really just mean spirited ways. And 2008 after the high holiday services about a month later, they came up with a creative strategy

01:33:41.310 - 01:33:58.010

to get rid of me. They said we anticipate going bankrupt in july So you're welcome to stay. You have a contract through another couple of years, two years you can stay but I don't know whether we're gonna be able to pay after july. Well that wasn't

01:33:58.020 - 01:34:16.970

exactly a uh signal of a good future ahead. And at one point I said to them, I said, look, you know, quite honestly, you've had tall rabbis, you've had short ones, you've had fat ones, you've had skinny ones, you've had educated ones, not educated ones, you've

01:34:16.970 - 01:34:40.780

had even rabbis that didn't even have bona fide credentials, you didn't realize, said you've had charismatic rabbis, you've had non Karisma, you've had every type of rabbi and you fired every single one of them. Let me ask, where is the problem here? And I resigned. There

01:34:40.780 - 01:34:56.630

was no future and ended up going to Canada for 10 years, having a wonderful experience doing some great things up there. And here I am, back in the midst of the pandemic, frustrated that there's no real opportunities for me to do anything at the moment. But

01:34:56.630 - 01:35:14.910

I'm hoping that will change. But um, so here's, here's what happened after I left bristol. Um here's what happened after I left or Hadash or army brit Shalom couldn't get another rabbi for a number of years. Finally, Rabbi Segal came and then now they have Rabbi

01:35:14.910 - 01:35:39.080

Teller, but the congregation never regained Its prominence. It lost after I left. They lost 300 families, they lost millions of dollars in income or army lost half of their members and they're just a quite sleepy little place out in West Houston barely hanging on. So these

01:35:39.080 - 01:36:05.990

congregations, despite the fact that there were intelligent, competent people who were successful in their businesses, made absolutely horrific decisions, sitting on the synagogue board decisions that were based upon their self interest, their emotions, and just not really taking the best interests of the synagogue at heart.

01:36:06.000 - 01:36:22.990

And those congregations have suffered over the years as a result of that. Thank you. I wanna I wanna pivot a little bit because we are we are um coming to the end, I want to ask you about um I mean, I'd love to, you know, here,

01:36:22.990 - 01:36:39.200

obviously about the experience of coming back to Houston and, you know, during the, during the pandemic and and what that's been like, but more more optimistically, perhaps aiming to end on a, on a, on a more optimistic and positive note, um one of the things that

01:36:39.200 - 01:36:56.290

we haven't had a chance to talk about in this interview is um interfaith work and I know that interfaith work is deeply, deeply important to you. So just tell us a little bit about how you became involved in interfaith work and why you believe it is

01:36:56.290 - 01:37:17.710

so critical, I became involved in interfaith work as a, as a outgrowth of social justice activities. So, I'm engaged with ministers, priests and others and that led to an appreciation for, Okay, well, we're working on this one particular issue, but, you know, we have some other

01:37:17.710 - 01:37:35.710

things in common, we have some other issues as religious people, as clergy, let's let's talk about our relationships between our communities, our outlook on the world, how we can muster those things to not only do the common issue that we're specifically here for, but just more

01:37:35.720 - 01:37:52.820

broadly and um to to sort of affect Tikkun Olam, to make the changes that we want to see in improving the world, um and so that's, that's sort of how that came about. And so I was involved with interfaith ministries, I was the first jewish president

01:37:52.820 - 01:38:12.950

and and really deep in my relationship with a lot of the clergy in the community. Um one at one point, I was involved also as the co chair of the campaign for the homeless by the united way, and slept out one night january 1st, um 1990

01:38:12.960 - 01:38:38.500

with seven other prominent clergy in town, so really on a personal and professional level, became too, really appreciate those relationships and value those, so that that led me to to understand that the part of the social justice impetus was was an interfaith focus um and and

01:38:38.500 - 01:39:00.810

how meet in a dark, dark shalom that for the pursuit of pass a piece, you have to go out and reach out to people anti Semitism is to a large extent a product of ignorance and misinformation and stereotypes and how do you combat that, but you

01:39:00.820 - 01:39:17.320

you do that through forging forging relationships with people, so they get to know who you are and what you believe and and that overcomes a lot of that that prejudice. So that was really what what I set out to do. And in Calgary I was able

01:39:17.320 - 01:39:37.320

to actually take it to a whole nother level by creating a new organization called the Calgary Interfaith council, which was an amalgamation of seven smaller interfaith organizations. The idea being that if we all merged, we would have much more of a voice and an impact on

01:39:37.320 - 01:39:58.000

the community. So we did in january of 2017 and we decided as our first program, we do this um World United Nations World Interfaith Harmony Week program, which is a global initiative that Jordan's started in 2010. So we decided to do the program and we ended

01:39:58.000 - 01:40:14.570

up doing a week long program. It's in the first week of february and we had social justice component. So we had a interfaith habitat for humanity build project. We raised a million dollars. Built 10 homes. This this was part of that initiative that week. So we

01:40:14.570 - 01:40:35.340

got people to do some of that. We had dialogues and debates and we had other kinds of interfaith projects for this whole week. Well, we ended up winning the World Interfaith Harmony Week, First prize to our amazement and shock. So bobby and I imam phase Tilly

01:40:35.340 - 01:40:53.570

and his wife Noreen and reverend Debra Falk were invited as the guests of the Jordanian government to come to Amman to receive the award from King Abdullah in the palace. And we did. And it was an amazing experience. I was the first jew first rabbi to

01:40:53.570 - 01:41:11.050

be part of this uh interfaith world Harmony week. So that added a whole nother dimension, especially as we were looking at the dead sea and the Jordan from the Jordanian side, not the Israeli side. So my last question for you, you know, there are, there are

01:41:11.050 - 01:41:27.560

people who say, and I'm sure this is a remark that you will have heard more than once over your, the course of your career, that religion and politics don't mix right? When I come to the synagogue on Shabbat, I wanna, I wanna pray the words in

01:41:27.560 - 01:41:42.800

the seed or I want to see my friends, I want to have a nice kid ish, right? Don't lecture me about, you know this, this, this and that and and what what, what would you say to them? What would you respond? Well, these are also the

01:41:42.800 - 01:41:58.780

same people that say, I don't want to serve on the synagogue board because there's too much politics in the synagogue. So what does it, what does that mean? Politics is just people doing what they need to do in life. Politics is the flip side of the

01:41:58.780 - 01:42:20.640

coin of religion. There is no politics without religion and religion. They, they're the values of religion infuse the political world and the political world impacts the religious world. So you can't live cloistered in one or the other. So what is Judaism? All the myths vote. Not

01:42:20.640 - 01:42:34.380

all the myths vote, but so many of them miss vote are designed to engage us in the world that we live in. We're supposed to clothe the naked feed the hungry, we're supposed to go out and give comfort to people. How do you do that in

01:42:34.380 - 01:42:52.090

the sanctuary? You have to get out of the sanctuary. The sanctuary is a, is a re recharging station. It's like your car, your electric car, you plug it in at night, so it's charged so you can go and get in it and drive out into the

01:42:52.090 - 01:43:11.560

world. So that's what, that's what the sanctuary is. The recharging station. So get charged and then go out and do be be a mention the world. So that's the essence of religion, Judaism. You know the cliches were a religion of deeds, not creed well for religion

01:43:11.560 - 01:43:29.870

of deeds, that means you're doing something, you got to do something. Prayer is an act. It's a, it's an important act, but it's recharging, its to get U shaped internally so that what you do externally is compatible with your internal self. You're in harmony. You're in

01:43:29.870 - 01:43:46.760

balance if I only was doing social justice, I'd be out of balance as a rabbi. If I was only doing internal stuff and the only time you're ever gonna see me is in the sanctuary giving a sermon, then I'm out of balance there as well. So

01:43:46.790 - 01:44:08.120

I've tried to find balance both working on the internal stuff, the recharging station, but also the stuff out in the world. The difficulty, of course, is the stuff that you do out in the world gets more attention and notoriety than what you do internally. Nobody says,

01:44:08.790 - 01:44:29.120

wow, that was that sermon on humility moved me and changed me now. It may have done that to lots of people, but there's no article about it in the newspaper, there's no headline. It doesn't get any attention. If I go out with justice, the janitors there

01:44:29.120 - 01:44:44.260

I am, there's my picture with the banners in the front line. Oh, the rabbis out there again. Okay, so that that was that was the downside of being out there publicly so much is that people said, oh well, he's not spending any time at the synagogue.

01:44:45.320 - 01:45:01.360

The reality was I was spending all my time at the synagogue and my personal spare time was out there in the community. So, but but to me, you can't do one without the other. They have to be, they have to their two prongs, you have to

01:45:01.360 - 01:45:21.180

do both. And um, maybe I aired on the the, the side of social justice in some ways, whereas my critique of of many of my colleagues would be, they've aired on the other side, they're too quiet there too, too much focused on internal stuff, which is

01:45:21.180 - 01:45:43.870

really safe. So if you wanna protect your job, you want to have longevity. Still don't speak out about these issues, don't get involved, don't be vulnerable and you'll be fine. Just give those sermons about cash route that nobody really cares about or Shabbat that nobody pays

01:45:43.870 - 01:46:02.740

attention to because it's like, oh yeah, here's the the expected sermon on that subject. So I just, I'm really, I'm listening with one ear but I'm daydreaming with the other while I'm sitting there. So yeah, you can do that and be safe. But my from from

01:46:02.740 - 01:46:20.590

my teen years on, I never wanted to be safe. I mean what's the point of going through life and being safe all the time? You know, I'm secure enough with who I am, that I can take risks. And you know, I said to people in the

01:46:20.590 - 01:46:42.020

wake of the meltdown at brit shalom, I said what is it with these people? So what do they think they're gonna do? All they've done is denied me employment. That location 46 10 Bellaire boulevard, I'm gonna work somewhere else down the street. They're not gonna they're

01:46:42.020 - 01:47:05.670

not gonna change my life, they just changed my place of employment. That's all really get a get a life people. Yeah, thank you so much for the opportunity to spend time together, to look back to philosophy, eyes um to hear from you and your your memories

01:47:05.670 - 01:47:22.300

and your insights. It's been very powerful, very memorable. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I did thank you for the opportunity. I don't know what anyone ever is going to do with all this material, but it'll add another perspective to many that

01:47:22.300 - 01:47:30.360

I've shared by my colleagues and others. So thank you for doing what you're doing, preserving the history of the community. My pleasure. Thanks so much.