Congregation Sons of Israel Rabbi Bruce Ginsburg retires after 31 years

Traditionally, at the end of the Passover Seder, Jewish people say, “Next year in Jerusalem,” and for Rabbi Bruce Ginsburg and his wife, Rachel, that year is now.

After 31 years of serving the Congregation of the Sons of Israel, in Woodmere, Ginsburg, 70, plans to retire at the end of June.

“We have been fortunate to have him as our spiritual leader,” Mark Kavarsky, the synagogue’s president, said. “So we recognize there was a great loss by his retirement.” The synogogue is in negotiations to hire Ginsburg’s successor, Kavarsky said.

In emigrating to Israel, the Ginsburgs plan to live closer to their three children and 10 grandchildren, which is known as making aliyah in the Jewish community. “All our children are in Israel, and grandchildren,” Rachel said. “We wanted to go to Israel when we are still healthy, physically and mentally.”

Ginsburg, who was named the rabbi of Sons of Israel in 1991, describes it as a traditional liberal congregation. Throughout his tenure, he was a proponent of education and social justice in the community.

“He introduced many wonderful programs to the synagogue, and also made it a point to be very involved with the children of all ages,” said Harriet Gefen, the education and executive director.

Ginsburg, Gefen added, supported programs for special-needs, Russian and Israeli children. “Whatever program or project I came to him with,” she said, “he was completely, 100 percent supportive.”

Ginsburg’s adult-education courses, Gefen said, have always been very well attended, and everyone in the community, whether they were part of the congregation or not, has sought his counseling.

“I consider him to be a once-in-a-lifetime spiritual leader,” Kavarsky said, “who’s supported individuals and families through a multitude of life cycles.”

Born and raised in Levittown, Pennsylvania, Ginsburg was devoted to his Jewish faith and followed the example of his mother, Louis Ginsburg, as a spiritual leader.

In their reform congregation, Temple of Shalom, his mother was the first president of the Sisterhood Son of God, the congregation’s women organization, and later the synogogue’s president.

After Bruce’s bar mitzvah, he began thinking of becoming a rabbi. Encouraged by his mother, he spoke with Temple of Shalom’s late rabbi, Herbert Hendel, whom he greatly admired. “To this day,” Ginsberg said, “I regularly visit his gravesite in appreciation.”

He attended Boston University and joined Hillel, the campus Jewish organization. With the mentorship of its director at the time, Rabbi Joseph Polak, Ginsburg began considering conservative and reform schools for his rabbinical studies.

He began attending the conservative Jewish Theological Seminary in 1973, and spent two years at its branch in Israel, where he attended classes at Hebrew University.

“During the time that I was there, I found myself becoming more and more traditional,” Ginsburg said.

While completing his rabbinical studies, he met Rachel Ginsburg in the summer of 1974, after volunteering to work at the kibbutz where she lived.

After finishing school, Ginsburg, then 27, became the rabbi for the Bethpage Jewish Community Center — now part of the Midway Jewish Center in Syosset — with the recommendation of a cousin who was a member. “It was a wonderful place to grow,” Ginsburg said. “They were a loving congregation.”

Although Pennsylvania will always be home to him, Ginsburg said he chose to begin his rabbinical work in New York because the state was home to the country’s major Jewish institutions and communities of all ethnic and religious backgrounds.

“While I was open to going anywhere,” he said, “I understood that if you want to be where the action is, it is New York.”

Serving on the Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Celebration Committee of Nassau County since 1997, Ginsburg focused on bringing the county together through ecumenical services.

The Sons of Israel was the first synagogue to host both Jewish and non-Jewish communities for the celebration of King’s birthday in 1999. In 2003, he was the recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr. Award.

Ginsburg led the Sons of Israel to be the common ground for Jewish communities around the Five Towns to gather for services.

Starting around 1996, he said, his congregation was instrumental in bringing 13 synagogues together to share their teachings.

“It didn’t matter if you were Orthodox, conservative, [or] reform,” Gefen said. “He tried to really bring everybody together.”

In retirement, Ginsburg said, he plans to catch up on reading and spend time with his children. “I’ve got a long list of things that I want to continue to learn,” he said. “So that’s certainly something I look forward to.”