New rabbi installed at Temple Beth-El

Providence’s Temple Beth-El held a dual celebration on Friday night, Oct. 22: Preston Neimeiser was installed as the new assistant rabbi at the East Side congregation, and many of the more than 100 people in attendance were in the sanctuary for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Senior Rabbi Sarah Mack beamed as she welcomed both those in person and on the livestream.

The congregants online and those who attended in person, masked and spread out in Beth-El’s sanctuary, worshipped with Rabbis Mack and Neimeiser, Rabbi Emeritus Lesley Y. Gutterman and Cantor Judith Seplowin.

Rabbi David Adelson, dean of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion New York Campus, and a mentor to Rabbi Neimeiser, gave the installation address.

“Tonight is a celebration of so many things,” he said. “It is a wonderful moment of renewal and vitality coming out of the pandemic.”

He called Rabbi Neimeiser a leader among peers and a champion of social justice while at HUC-JIR. Neimeiser graduated from HUC-JIR in May.

Rabbi Neimeiser, 27, began his tenure at Temple Beth-El on July 1, and has already become a well-regarded member of the community, temple president Tonya Glantz said in her opening remarks.

Other participants in the service included installation chairs Amy and Kenneth Orth and Rob and Faye Stolzman.

Neimeiser opened the service by calling his wife, Victoria Litman, to the bimah to kindle the Shabbat lights. He also announced that she had just passed the New York Bar!

Rob Stolzman, a past president of the congregation, paid tribute to the history of Beth-El by naming some of the senior congregants in attendance.

And he said of Rabbi Neimeiser, “I know he has already won the hearts of those who have met him. Whatever we throw his way, he has met with a smile.”

The installation of a new rabbi symbolized the start of a new chapter in Beth-El’s more than 160-year history.

Rabbi Neimeiser told the audience,  “I am humbled and inspired by those who came before and those yet to come.”

For more about Rabbi Neimeiser, go to https://bit.ly/3BrkYxz.

FRAN OSTENDORF (fostendorf@jewishallianceri.org) is the editor of Jewish Rhode Island.