A Rabbi’s Departure Manifests a Challenge for Jews in America

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

Rabbi Andy Bachman developed a model for what might bring some of the nation’s millions of Jews who are unaffiliated with synagogues back to the fold.

The departure of Rabbi Andy Bachman, who is leaving his Brooklyn synagogue to help the poor, highlights vexing issues at the center of Judaism’s future in the United States.

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Membership at Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope, Brooklyn, has doubled to more than a thousand families in the last eight years, since Rabbi Bachman took over. Credit Michael Nagle for The New York Times