The United Synagogue

Welwyn Garden City Appoints New Rabbi

PRESS COVERAGE

London, 25th May, 2006

WELWYN GARDEN CITY FILLS ITS PULPIT AFTER A YEAR-LONG SEARCH

After a search lasting almost a year, Welwyn Garden City Synagogue has appointed a new part-time minister. Rabbi Hillel Gruber succeeds Rabbi Geoffrey Hyman, who left the United Synagogue-affiliated congregation last summer to take up a full-time post as minister of Ilford Synagogue. For American-born Rabbi Gruber, 28, this will be his first post as a community rabbi. A native of Chicago, he and his family moved to Israel when he was six years old. Growing up there, he attended a yeshivah in Kiryat Gat, then returned to America to study at yeshivot in New York and New Haven, before going on to the rabbinical college in New Jersey, where, at the age of 24, he gained semichah.

After furthering his learning at the rabbinical college in New York, he arrived in this country with a scholarship and is currently studying with Rabbi Eliezer Schneebalg at the Machzikei Hadass Beth Hamedrash in Edgware.

During the recent war with Lebanon, he returned to Israel as a volunteer, and was trained by the Israel Defence Forces as an army chaplain, extending his skills to include bereavement counselling, psychology and practical rabbinics.

Welwyn Garden City Synagogue chair Reynold Rosenberg told the JC that the congregation felt that the rabbi had the understanding and humour necessary to lead the community. He said: “We look forward to developing a fruitful partnership, where we can both benefit — on our side, from his knowledge and enthusiasm, and on his side, from the experience he will gain as a community rabbi.”

Rabbi Gruber and his British wife, Risa, have two children — a two-year-old and a baby of nine months. He took his first Shabbat service in the community last week.



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Article Credit, Jewish Chronicle, www.thejc.com

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