New rabbi joins Temple Am-Echad

Temple Am Echad has spent the past two years searching for a rabbi traditional and progressive, spiritual and intellectual, easygoing and compelling. They have found all this and more in Caroline Sim, who will join the congregation this July.

“I was the first person who spoke with Rabbi Caroline,” said Carole Neely, co-chair of the rabbi search committee and past president of Am Echad. “Do you ever feel, just immediately: this is it?”

The current landscape has made the search difficult — there are many synagogues seeking rabbis, and a scarcity of rabbis to fill that need. Even so, Temple Am Echad remained selective, waiting for the perfect fit for their 240-person reform congregation. When Sim came along, Neely knew the search was over.

Neely recounts the first time Sim met the congregation. It was Purim, and the children were all making hamentashen, a traditional pastry dessert. Sim dove right in; spending time with the kids and helping them make the dough.

“That’s something you can’t rehearse for,” Neely said. “That’s something that’s just in you.”

Sim, who attended rabbinical school at Hebrew Union College Jewish institute of Religion in Cincinnati and is currently the director of rabbinic services at the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life, is looking forward to serving the Lynbrook community.

“I want to help people,” Sim said. “I want to be able to serve them as a rabbi — to comfort them when they’re in need, to answer questions they have, to celebrate holidays, to offer spiritual guidance, to help grow the community.”

Sim is remarkably popular with members of Am Echad — she is the first rabbi to be chosen unanimously by both the board and the congregation. During the selection process, rabbi candidates often meet with members of the synagogue during torah studies and other events, and those members give feedback to the selection chair. According to Neely, their response to Sim was “overwhelming.” 

“As people left these meetings, they’d look at me, and they’d look at my co-chair Edie, and they’d say 'don’t let her leave!’” Neely said.”

“She got a very positive response from everybody,” said Warren Cooper, president of Temple Am Echad. “She seems approachable. She seems to appeal to the different demographics that we have.”

Sim’s background immediately set her apart from other candidates. She has traveled across 13 states to serve as a rabbi for congregations without a full-time clergy presence. Sim went wherever there was a need — whether it was for a marriage ceremony or a funeral service.

“One of the beautiful things that happens is everyone figures out how to get along with each other,” Sim says of her rabbinical experiences in the south, where there are fewer synagogues available for people to attend. “Because it’s important for them. Everybody's gonna have differences — political differences, ideological differences, opinion differences — but people find more ways to get along when they can be a part of a Jewish community and celebrate the tradition.”

“She had to relate to so many people with so many different needs,” Neely said. “And that’s what our congregation is all about.”

For Sim, being a rabbi means serving all members equally, regardless of age or background. This is especially important to Temple Am Echad — the community has a strong presence of older congregants, but at the same time the enrollment of children in their religious education programs has doubled. Catering to the entire spectrum of congregants is vital to, in Sim’s words, “have a community as a whole, and make sure you have a whole community.”

“There's sometimes a disconnect between the younger generation and the older generation,” Sim said. “Bridging that gap is tricky but worthwhile.”

Sim’s natural ability to balance the needs of all congregants and services struck both the board and community members alike.

“She brings some good ideas, some newness and freshness to us, as well as wanting to embrace our traditions,” Cooper said.

“You have funerals, and you also have baby namings,” Neely said. “We wanted someone who could really officiate and relate to all our needs.”

As the rabbi of Temple Am Echad, Sim hopes to help people renew their relationship with Judaism and celebrate their heritage and identities as American Jews.

“My mission is to help people find their Jewish Center,” Sim said. “To help people find how Judaism is important to them.”

Neely is confident that after years of seeking a perfect fit for Temple Am Echad, she will not have to join a rabbi search committee for a very long time.

“This rabbi is really going to add a lot to the community — I really think she’s gonna make a difference in Lynbrook,” Neely said. “It was a long haul. And I think our patience has been rewarded.”

For more information on Temple Am Echad’s services, visit Am-Echad.org.