Rabbi Boettiger hears call to 'head west' Reprinted with permission of The Bennington Banner BENNINGTON --After an accomplishment-filled six years in town, Rabbi Joshua Boettiger of Congregation Beth El will be moving west with his family this summer. "My last day will most likely be June 30," he said in an interview in his office on Tuesday. "The board and I are still working out final details." "All of my family are over there" Boettiger and his family will be moving to the West Coast, somewhere between the Bay Area and Vancouver, though they are not yet sure where. "I wanted to let the congregation here know with plenty of time to do a rabbinic search. So I don't have a job over there yet. Hopefully, that will come soon," he said. "We made the decision to move because all of my family are over there now, between Vancouver and San Francisco, and our close network of extended family and friends are out on that coast. We just felt like it was time to be closer to them." Boettiger and his wife, Vanessa Grajwer Boettiger, who is also a rabbi, recently had their first child, a daughter named Paloma. Though the couple had been thinking of moving before she was born, wanting her to be closer to her grandparents and extended network of friends and family helped them decide to move. "I'll miss the people. I'll miss a lot of things, but primarily I'll miss the people and the friendships and the depth of the interaction with both the individuals in the community, that make up the community, and the community as a whole," Boettiger said. "I love congregational work. I think I'm very spoiled with this congregation, and I mean that very sincerely. It was the reason that it was such a hard decision to make. My wife and I feel personally and professionally really connected here to the individuals of this congregation and to the spirit of this congregation." This connection made the decision to leave a difficult one. While he hopes to serve another congregation, "whatever congregation that is will have big shoes to fill." A great-grandson of Franklin Delano and Eleanor Roosevelt, Boettiger is a graduate of Bard College and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, from which he was ordained. Born in Maine, he grew up in an interfaith household in Northampton, Mass., the son of an Episcopalian father and a Jewish mother. His parents let him choose his own spiritual path. He lived in Massachusetts until he was 13 and then moved to Sonoma County, Calif. Boettiger first came to Bennington in 2001 during his first full year of rabbinical school to apprentice at Congregation Beth El as a student rabbi under Rabbi Howard Cohen. "That's how I first got to know the community and love the community, and I made a mental note at the time, 'I would love to serve a community like this when I am ordained.' And then it happened that there was an opportunity to do that." He began as full-time rabbi at Congregation Beth El on Aug. 1, 2006. Beth El is a synagogue in the Reconstructionist denomination of Judaism, and he would like to serve such a community in the future. "I would feel most comfortable and hope to serve another Reconstructionist community," he said. "There are congregations that are non-denominational or post-denominational that I think could also be good fits looking ahead." Boettiger said the primary highlight of his time at Beth El "is that we're a community that really cares for each other and loves each other and shows up for each other, and I feel that it's a community that really functions in real time in that way," he said. "You know, we don't stand on ceremony here. I think it's people who really are looking for a spirituality to go through life with and to mark all the different occasions that life brings us. "I want to be sure to say that was the case before I came here. I think that this community had that spirit," he said. "I guess all I can say is in reflecting on these six years (is) I feel ... proud of being part of a community that I feel has those characteristics." Among other highlights of his tenure was the congregation receiving a Legacy Heritage Project Innovation Grant from the Legacy Heritage Fund for increased programming over three years. "So we got to bring in a lot of new programming. We got to do a lot more intergenerational programming." These include Green Mountain Shabbats, which are continuing. "There's been groups of congregants that I've been able to learn with really over the course of the whole six years," he said. "We've had a Jewish meditation group that's met regularly for six years; we've had a Biblical Hebrew group that's met regularly for six years. So I treasure those classes and that ongoing work as well." Another highlight was the celebration of the centennial of the congregation in 2009. After this came a capital campaign and major renovation project, "which I'm very happy about," Boettiger said. Recently completed, the $400,000 project included 810 square feet of additions to the synagogue and office building/social hall and many other infrastructure improvements. Other highlights include two congregation trips to Israel, continuing a practice started by Cohen. Every year now there is a congregational retreat at Pompanuck Farm in Cambridge, N.Y. Boettiger has worked as a carpenter in the past, and in 2009 he led a timber framing workshop at the Bennington Museum. One result of this was construction of a sturdy frame structure in the back meadow at the museum. It was originally used as a Sukkah, a temporary structure used to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, also known as the Jewish Festival of Booths. On a wider level, Boettiger said it was a privilege being part of the Greater Bennington Interfaith Council. He's proud of the work the council has done in the last six years helping Greater Bennington Interfaith Community Services (GBICS) get established and supporting its work. Within the last five years, GBICS established a free medical clinic at the First Baptist Church of Bennington on Main Street and opened a large food pantry, the Kitchen Cupboard, at the corner of Gage and Bradford Streets in town. Anything to add? "I'm very encouraged by the leadership at the congregation right now on a board level," Boettiger said, noting the congregation recently held a community meeting to talk about the change. "A lot of people came out to share their opinions and to support the community in this time of transition and to talk about hiring a new rabbi, which they're already in the process of doing. "So I have a lot of faith that this community will continue to be strong and thriving," he said. "And we hope to be back to visit a lot." |
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