Bay Area native in 1st crop of L.A. rabbinic school grads

A Northern California native who traded in his trumpet career for a shofar will make history by graduating in the first class of rabbis ever ordained on the West Coast.

Mark Fasman, 44, who was born in Oakland and grew up in Redwood City attending Temple Beth Jacob, will become a rabbi on May 17.

Fasman is one of eight students graduating from the Los Angeles-based University of Judaism's Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, a Conservative seminary.

In past years, all prospective Conservative rabbis had to attend New York's Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

"I'm just excited that [next] week I will be in the first group of rabbis ever ordained west of the Mississippi River," Fasman said.

"We know we are pioneers and that we've had to break a lot of new ground."

The Conservative rabbinic school opened its doors four years ago with the promise of serving West Coast Jews, the second most populous Jewish region in North America.

As the school ventured into uncharted territory, Fasman said he and other students have been eager to prove themselves as knowledgeable as their East Coast counterparts.

"There will be sort of a question mark next to the Ziegler School until people see how we do. From the inside I can tell you we've been trained rigorously and we're ready to meet the challenge of the rabbinate. I don't feel in any way second class."

In addition to traditional learning, Fasman said he has been trained to address the major problems of West Coast Jews such as low affiliation, high intermarriage and dispersed populations.

However, Fasman is the only rabbi in the first graduating class to stay on the West Coast. He'll be taking an associate rabbi position at Temple Sinai in Los Angeles.

For Fasman, the rabbinate was not exactly the gig he expected to play.

Prior to enrolling in the Ziegler School, Fasman had settled in Fargo, N.D., and built a career as a trumpet player. He had a tenured position at Moorhead State University in Minnesota and taught music for 17 years. Fasman also blew his horn for the Fargo Symphony. His wife, Alice, was a singer and also a tenured professor at Moorhead.

Though Fargo's Jewish community was sparse, the Fasman family diligently remained observant. And when the town's only rabbi departed, Fasman did not want the rest of the Jewish community to be left in the cold.

So Fasman, who was already studying classical Jewish texts with a small group of friends, volunteered with others to lead services.

As he became more involved in the Jewish world, Fasman felt his life split in two between his career and his faith. Then, at a baseball game, his wife told him to make a choice.

"We had to be very sure of what we were doing," said Fasman, knowing he and his wife would have to give up their tenured positions.

When Fasman enrolled in the seminary, he left his six trumpets with his brother. But he found he couldn't leave music behind so easily. In rabbinic school, once he put the shofar to his lips the entire class and faculty were in awe.

"People tell me they've never heard the instrument sound that way. I like to play on the long, Yemenite shofars and I can do circular breathing. I guess because I can hold tekiah for a long time it's a powerful experience."

He's currently doing research for a book on the history and technique of the shofar.

Looking ahead to serving his new congregation, Fasman said: "The challenge is that the California culture is so focused on the individual. It tends to make it difficult to create the close-knit and multigenerational community prevalent on the East Coast."

He said the Ziegler School "is a natural outgrowth of West Coast Jewry. In that sense I never doubted what I was doing was something amazing."