More in ‘Jewish Renewal’

For a very long time, discussions of the future of American Judaism have taken place in an atmosphere of pessimism and recrimination. Since the 1960s, the familiar story goes, Jewish religious institutions have allowed the majority of Jews to slip away. Synagogues are spiritually uninspiring places, which most Jews visit only on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The Reform and Conservative movements are in an identity crisis, unable to come up with convincing theological rationales for their existence. Israel and the Holocaust have become the real pillars of American Jewish identity, and they are growing less potent all the time.

Last week, Ed Stafman—former attorney, former Floridian, former atheist, current rabbi—drove a 26-foot moving truck to Montana to start his new life. On Monday, he and his wife slept in a motel near Mount Rushmore. By Wednesday morning, they were passing through a Crow Indian reservation in the Badlands. Stafman’s destination is the city of Bozeman, where, on August 14, he will be installed as the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Shalom, the Reform synagogue where he has spent 10 days a month for the past year. The ceremony will officially make him one of two active rabbis in the state.