Beth Am’s rabbi emeritus reflects on a long career

In speaking about his long career as a rabbi, Sidney Akselrad tends to talk mostly about individuals. He mentions the one former congregant he had lunch with recently, and another he helped with a problem. He just got a letter from yet another. The conversation continues for a while like this, and it is only after a long time that he mentions he has cancer and has undergone 12 blood transfusions.

Akselrad, who is almost 85, is rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills. And last year, he became the author, along with Elaine Berman, of "Lishma: For His Name's Sake," subtitled "The Life and Times of Rabbi Sidney Akselrad, An Oral History."

In 1991 and 1992, Akselrad and oral historian Berman sat for 14 conversations for a work that would become a reference about Jewish life in the Bay Area. With financial help from the synagogue, it was made into this book as well.

While Akselrad and Berman got along very well, after 14 lengthy conversations, the rabbi said "Enough."

"But later I was a little sorry, because I think I probably could have completed another two or three books," he said. "I've had such a full life."

Akselrad has experienced the variety of Jewish life. He was born into an Orthodox family in Pittsburg, became attracted to Reconstructionism, and ultimately decided to become a Reform rabbi. He began performing intermarriages at a time when the majority of his colleagues would not — if a couple said they would raise Jewish children.

At Akselrad's first congregation, in Detroit, his senior rabbi was already performing them, so he decided to follow suit — even though he was not in favor of doing them himself.

Now, he has no regrets, as over the years "I've received many calls from people who have been married 20 or 30 years, and they not only have Jewish children but Jewish grandchildren," he said. "And some have since converted."

As a young rabbi, Akselrad left Detroit to come to Berkeley's Congregation Beth El. There from 1952 to 1962, he called himself a "pioneer" at the time, as rabbis from the East Coast knew they were coming to a very different Jewish landscape.

In Detroit, he worked at an established congregation, where he oversaw a religious school with 950 children. He had a full staff of 40 teachers and an assistant.

When he came to Berkeley, he barely had help at all.

"My initiation was pretty tough," he recalled.

Within his first three days, a man came through selling Israel Bonds. After a meeting at which he tried to get people to invest $100,000 in Israel and raised nothing, he turned to Akselrad and said, "You have quite a job here. I'm going to wash the dirt of Berkeley off my feet and never come back again."

Akselrad's memoir covers historical events, including how he went with several Bay Area rabbinical colleagues to participate in the civil rights March on Selma, Ala., and arriving at Berkeley during the McCarthy era. He also writes of a mission to Germany in 1959, before exchanges between Germans and Jews were common.

But the smaller things he did were just as important, if not more so.

One of the rabbi's favorite things to do while at Beth Am was to take a walk with his congregants. He called this "Walk and Talk with the Rabbi."

"Sometimes it would be a young person home from school who was trying to assess what to do in life," he said. "Or couples or individuals. I found they were able to talk with me in a way they wouldn't otherwise."

Reflecting on his long career, and on Beth Am in particular, Akselrad said, "I've been fortunate not only with my family but with my congregation. It's a congregation with a sense of purpose, and a real commitment to social justice and to each other."




"Lishma: For His Name's Sake" by Rabbi Sidney Akselrad and Elaine Berman (235 pages, iUniverse, $18.95).