Retiring Rabbi Halpern recalled as friend, conciliator
By Deborah Moon Seldner
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The founding rabbi of the South Metro Jewish Congregation and an active bridge builder in Portland's Jewish community, Rabbi Larry Halpern will retire later this month and make aliyah to his new home in Jerusalem.
Friends and colleagues within the congregation and from across the community praise Halpern as a community-minded, conciliator, nice guy, teacher, mentor, voice of reason and friend with a capital F.
Jewish Federation of Greater Portland Executive Vice President Charles Schiffman, Halpern's first contact in Portland, praised Halpern for his contributions in two areas.
"He has built SMJC, with the help of a small number of extremely dedicated lay people, into a dynamic, growing, creative community," said Schiffman. "Secondly, beyond the walls of the congregation, he has concerned himself with the needs of the community as a whole and has always been a bridge builder and conciliator. I am proud to consider him a friend, a colleague and a mentor."
In turn, Halpern praises Schiffman as "part of my vision of what a community should be."
"That's how I got involved with SMJC," said Halpern.
After half a year at the federation, Halpern became area director of the American Jewish Committee, Oregon Chapter. Over the next three years, he devoted his weekends to leading services for congregations he had met doing outreach for federation. From Bend and Coos Bay to closer home in West Linn (home to SMJC), Halpern helped communities bridge the gap of not having a rabbi.
In 1999, under Halpern's guidance, the South Metro Jewish Community became the South Metro Jewish Congregation. Since then, Halpern has served as the congregation's full-time rabbi, with the exception of July 2001-August 2002, when he was in Israel for a planned two-year stay. When SMJC fell on troubled times, Halpern returned to help the congregation.
"There would be no SMJC without Larry Halpern," said John Moss, who was SMJC president when Halpern became the full-time rabbi. "When the congregation had difficulties after he left, he sacrificed to come back to help save a labor of love."
Current SMJC President Steve Bilow added, "SMJC will forever be indebted to him for the way he held us in his heart in our time of greatest need by returning from his stay in Israel to lead us through a very difficult, perhaps the most difficult, time in our 14-year-history. It is still difficult to comprehend the fact that a rabbi of 40 years would cut short a life in Israel to return to us in our time of deepest need. But that's our Rabbi Larry—a man whose commitment to us will not be forgotten."
Though Halpern led SMJC to transition from a community to a congregation, Roberta DeAsis, an SMJC founder and president during Halpern's reign, said he also made the congregation a true community. Additionally, she said he brought the congregation into the larger Jewish world.
"We will miss his humor, his intellectual way of looking at things, and his openness and willingness to consider all sides of the issue," said DeAsis.
Halpern's outreach to the community and his role as a bridge builder were also praised by those outside of SMJC.
"From the time he came to town, he started working in the community," said Henry Blauer, who knows Halpern both because of his position on the federation board and since both have sat on the Krichevsky Scholarship Committee. "He's always available to step in and provide a perspective that was a healing or collegial perspective."
Oregon Board of Rabbis President Rabbi Daniel Isaak praised Halpern as a voice of reason and an extremely community-minded individual. He said Halpern's commitment to community and his intolerance of "individuals who made the process of community more difficult" led him to become the only rabbi in town to lead a Jewish agency. Halpern served one year as president of the Mittleman Jewish Community Center, as that agency faced potential bankruptcy, and helped the agency transition to new leadership to stabilize and plan the rejuvenation of the center.
Isaak said that Halpern saw his role "as more than simply in the spiritual realm, but really in the community realm."
"He was a voice of reason and compromise who listened closely to all the views and then tried to find a way to bring all the people together in a positive way," said Isaak.
Yet Halpern never ignored the spiritual needs of his own congregation. At least two SMJC members consider him the embodiment of what a rabbi should be.
"He's my idealized sense of what a rabbi can be and it's nice to know there's somebody like that who exists," said Moss.
Judith Kleinstein, who joined SMJC in 1999 after extensive "shul shopping," said that she realized the first time she met Halpern that "I was looking for a rabbi just like him."
"He's always been there for anybody who needed him," said Kleinstein, who is a member of Halpern's adult B'nai Mitzvah class that concludes with services June 9-10. "He's been our rabbi, our spiritual leader, our friend—with a capital F."
Moss also spoke highly of Halpern as a friend and mentor.
"He is my best friend," said Moss. "To be able to have that kind of friendship as an adult is a gift. ? He has been a great friend of many in our community."
Moss, who is executive director of the Oregon Jewish Community Foundation, said Halpern's influence is also the reason he became a Jewish professional.
"I would not be doing what I'm doing as a Jewish professional if it wasn't for Larry Halpern," said Moss. "He is a great man ? who makes Judaism approachable and accessible and he helps those who are disenfranchised make Judaism a part of their lives."
SMJC President Bilow is another example of Halpern's influence.
"I was a High Holy Days Jew at best," said Bilow. "But because of Rabbi Halpern, I became a very committed Jew."
"We will miss Rabbi Larry very profoundly," said Bilow. "At the same time, we absolutely share in his joy at the greatest of blessings—aliyah in Israel. All of us love Larry enough to counter our sadness with the joy that comes from seeing him live out his dream."