Rabbi’s Gospel Is Unity, Inclusion

Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis is worried that America is in danger of losing the “unum” in our national motto, “E Pluribus Unum” (“Out of many, one”).

Preacher, writer, thinker and nationally known leader of the largest local temple, Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, Schulweis fears that “we in the Valley and in the nation are in danger of losing that overarching connection that joins us together.”

“Consider how feeble our interfaith activities in our communities [are],” he said. “Consider how rare it is to witness the combined energies of church, synagogue and mosque on behalf of God’s children.”

Born in the Bronx in 1925 and ordained in 1950 after graduation from New York’s Jewish Theological Seminary, Schulweis came to Valley Beth Shalom from Oakland in 1970. He belongs to the Conservative, or centrist, wing of Judaism.

Although it sometimes raises eyebrows, his has been a ministry of inclusion:

* Embracing during the 1970s the concept of Havurah, religious observance in smaller communities to combat the alienation that can occur in the “professionalism of the synagogue.”

* Advancing the cause of the Righteous Christians (long before “Schindler’s List” was a household term) and castigating organized Jewry for “the morally tragic neglect” of those who risked their lives for Jews during the Holocaust. Schulweis maintains that each individual saved from extermination represents “a conspiracy of goodness” involving at least one Christian, if not dozens.

* Declaring in 1992 that, contrary to the Bible, homosexual acts are not abominations and that mainstream temples should give gay and lesbian Jews special support.

* Urging his congregation last year to seek converts among non-Jews, not in response to beefed-up efforts among Christian groups but rather affirming that “far from being a sectarian, ethnic clan, we are a people whose faith and wisdom and ethics have endured for four millennia.”

He and his wife, Malkah, have three children and are longtime Encino residents.