In a bad light
With a great deal of surprise I read the article “NRT rabbi’s contract not renewed” (Dec. 31). As a result, I am concerned about the impact of this news on the NRT congregation, as well as on our community at large.
During conversations with members of the New Reform Temple (NRT), several people expressed total surprise, not only that Rabbi Cukierkorn had been dismissed by the board, but the way in which it was done. One elderly member, who doesn’t want to be identified, said to me, “I knew that there was some bad blood between one or two board members and the rabbi, but Rabbi Jacques has done wonderful things for our congregation. I wish they had asked my opinion before firing him.” A couple confided that their family will gladly follow Rabbi Cukierkorn to his next post.
Technically, a board is entitled to hire and fire the rabbi, but a good board seeks outside intervention, if needed, to resolve conflict. More importantly, a board worth its salt considers the impact of firing its rabbi, as a private act of the board, on the whole congregation. In effect, from the feedback I received, it appears that even transition planning was an afterthought in this event.
Personally, I’m concerned that when we do not apply the Jewish principles that we espouse, especially to our own religious leaders, it puts our community under a bad light.
Eduard de Garay
Overland Park, Kan.
Bewildering decision
Thank you for your coverage (Dec. 31) of the decision by the board of the New Reform Temple to dismiss the Temple’s rabbi of 11-plus years. Your coverage began with the announcement of the dismissal by the temple president, but I am still puzzled by the board’s bewildering action.
As you reported, the Temple has thrived under the rabbi’s leadership: Membership is up. Service attendance is up. The variety of services provided by the Temple is up. Likewise ingenuity, vivacity, intellectual challenge.
Thanks to the rabbi’s creativity, we, as congregants, have enjoyed guided tours of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art that have focused on Jewish themes. Thanks to his energy, we have engaged in lively discussions (over lunches and even during Sabbath evening services) of issues that are critical to us — as Jews, as Americans and as citizens of the world.
And, as you note, thanks to his scholarship, we, as a congregation, have benefited from the prestige that flows from having a rabbi whose literary endeavors have been translated and published for a global readership.
All this, you would think, would be dayenu ... enough. That he accomplished all this while continuing to offer the very best of the more traditional, even routine, services one expects from a rabbi: encouragement in learning, consolation in grief, companionship in Jewish life.
I have lived long enough and been blessed enough to have known some pretty great rabbis, but none as accessible, as enthusiastic, as creative, as entertaining or as pleasant as Jacques Cukierkorn.
The board, by contrast, has shown itself to be aloof, narrow-minded, arrogant and cowardly. It neither seeks the counsel of the congregation before firing the rabbi nor stoops to explain its decision after the fact.
If, as Thomas C. Barnett, board president, would have us believe, the decision to fire Rabbi Cukierkorn were truly “the culmination of a long and thorough process,” why is this the first that the congregation has heard of it? Where are the artifacts of that process? Mr. Barnett concedes “the progress the congregation has enjoyed during [Rabbi Cukierkorn’s] leadership.” But he offers no hint as to how that progress may have fallen short of the board’s expectations.
Decisions as momentous as this in the life of a synagogue should originate with the congregation and end with the ratification of the board. They should not begin and end with the board.
John LaRoe
Member, New Reform Temple
