Kol Ami wastes no time hiring Rabbi Dunsker
By Deborah Moon
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Rabbi Elizabeth Dunsker becomes the new rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami July 1, after “a rabbi search that may be the shortest in history,” according to the chair of the Reform congregation’s rabbinic search committee.
Though the congregation considered 20 “viable candidates,” visited two in their home congregations and invited three for visits, they hired the first rabbi that Kol Ami search chair Cheryl Richards spoke to while attending the Reform movement’s National Biennial in San Diego last December.
“She is smart and funny and energetic and full of ideas,” said Richards, who is also vice president of Kol Ami.
Dunsker grew up in Rochester, N.Y. She graduated with a degree in sociology and women’s studies from Simmons College in Boston, where she earned the C. Wright Mills award as the student most dedicated to social change. She was ordained from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1996, after which she served Congregation Beth Israel in Austin, Texas, for seven years.
She served as the final rabbi of Suffern-Shir Shalom in New Jersey until its merger with Beth Haverim, a larger Reform congregation nearby. For the past year she has facilitated the transition of her former congregants into the new merged congregation.
Richards said when members of the search committee visited Dunsker at the merged congregation, they were impressed by “how people in her congregation adored her and were sad to see her go.”
By the end of Dunsker’s visit to Vancouver shortly after that, the Kol Ami board told her they intended to extend her a job offer.
“We felt so strongly she was the right one, we made her an offer,” said Richards. “You can’t wait till you see every candidate, or the rabbi you want already will have a job.”
Dunsker accepted a three-year contract with Kol Ami, said Richards, which means she will be the congregation’s rabbi as they begin building a synagogue.
“She closed the book on one congregation and now she will build another congregation’s temple,” said Richards. “She will be the rabbi who will be with us when we build our building.”
Last year Congregation Kol Ami received an anonymous pledge of $6 million to build a synagogue in Clark County, Wash. Richards said the congregation has already begun a visioning process and expects to begin the “nuts and bolts work of getting the job done” next year.
Dunsker married Jeff Leiman in 2000. Their son Zachary Aaron was born in 2004 and their daughter Sadie Mo was born in 2006. Richards said the couple is looking forward to making the Northwest their home.
Dunkser will lead her first service at Kol Ami at 10 a.m., July 5, at the Kol Ami Learning Center, 1006-B NE 146th St., Vancouver, Wash. For more information on the congregation, call 360-896-8088.