SAN DIEGO (Press Release)–Temple Emanu-El welcomes Richard J. Shapiro as interim rabbi, beginning July 1. Interim Rabbi Shapiro will serve for one year while the congregation conducts a search for a successor to retiring Rabbi Martin S. Lawson.
Shapiro grew up in southern California and received his BA in Jewish Studies from UCLA in 1976. After serving in the United States Army as a nuclear missile navigation specialist and a chaplain’s assistant, he attended the Los Angeles campus of Hebrew Union College, Jewish Institute of Religion where he was ordained as a rabbi in 1981. He received a Doctor of Divinity from HUC-JIR in 2006. His extensive pastoral experience includes eleven years as rabbi of Santa Barbara’s Congregation B’nai Brith and two years as rabbi at Palm Desert’s Temple Sinai. During his time at these congregations, he built successful youth programs, increased social action programming and expanded interfaith outreach. For the past several years, he has served as transition specialist, an intentional interim rabbi who guides congregations as they change leaders. His most recent post was a two-year stint as interim rabbi at Temple Beth El in Pensacola, Florida.
Shapiro finds the special requirements of an interim rabbi to be both challenging and fulfilling and says that he comes to Temple Emanu-El with a sense of renewal and excitement. The congregation looks forward to his tenure.
Shapiro and his wife, Lynn, are the parents of two grown sons Ari and Aaron, who live in the Washington, D.C. area.
Temple Emanu-El is a Reform Jewish Congregation that is affiliated with the Union for Reform Judaism. It serves over 500 family and single members. Its educational, social, spiritual and cultural programs cultivate a sense of family and community for all ages. For more information, please visit the Temple Emanu-El website at www.teesd.org, or contact Program Coordinator Shira Brandenburg at program@teesd.org.
*
Preceding provided by Temple Emanu-El