In the spotlight, rabbi gets to work

GREENVILLE -- It's 9 p.m. on a Thursday night, and Rabbi Alysa Stanton still has nine phone messages to retrieve from her office answering machine.

She began her day at a 7 a.m. breakfast sponsored by the city's Human Relations Council and has been working in her half-unpacked office at Congregation Bayt Shalom since. Over the course of the day, she met with synagogue members, taught an adult education class and planned for today's Yom Kippur service.

As the world's first black female rabbi, Stanton, 45, has been inundated with publicity. The London Guardian wrote a story about her. All the Israeli papers featured her. So did The New York Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Denver Post.

Stanton, who was ordained after completing her studies at Cincinnati's Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in June, dismisses the buzz.

"If I was the 50,000th African-American woman rabbi, I would still be doing what I'm doing," she said. "I keep my eyes on my job and on what God has called me to do."

Instead of talking about herself, she prefers to talk about a new Jewish year and a renewed commitment to community involvement -- themes that echo the reflection and introspection that Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, are known for.

But as she works to provide a meaningful Jewish experience for Greenville's 60 or so Jewish families, Stanton also offers proof that the South, and the Jewish presence within it, is no longer what it used to be.

Finding a faith

Stanton was born in a Pentecostal family in a mostly Jewish suburb of Cleveland. She began her own spiritual quest beginning at age 9, trying various Christian denominations and exploring some Eastern religions.

At 11, her family moved to Denver. Stanton continued her spiritual quest, eventually picking up an undergraduate degree in psychology and a master's of education in counseling and multiculturalism from Colorado State University.

There was no defining moment that led her to become a Jew, Stanton said. Rather, it was a long and winding journey. In 1987, she converted, and despite a busy private practice as a licensed psychotherapist, she found herself involved in the multiple ways Judaism forms a way of life.

In Colorado, she served as a part-time chaplain and cantorial soloist and taught religious school.

"Over the years, people would say, 'You should apply [to rabbinical school],' " she said. "But one doesn't just uproot their life and start a new career."

Eventually, though, that's exactly what she did.

Alongside her now 14-year-old adopted daughter, Shana, Stanton moved to Cincinnati for rabbinical school and spent one year in Israel.

She took on piles of student debt, and, in Israel, threw her daughter into an alien environment where she endured racial taunting. But the two pulled through.

As a student rabbi, Stanton served for a while in Dothan, Ala.'s Temple Emanu-El. The Southern Jewish experience -- Jews have lived in the South since at least 1695 -- appealed to her. When Jews from Greenville's only synagogue posted a job opening, she applied.

Growing a synagogue

Until 1975, Greenville's six Jewish families traveled to Kinston, Rocky Mount or New Bern to worship in a synagogue. That year, they decided to form their own.

With the growth of East Carolina University and its medical school, more Jews began arriving from all corners of the country. Members of the nascent synagogue bought a house and recruited a rabbi.

By 1992, the community had outgrown the house and sold the building to the next new community in town: a group of Hindus. Meanwhile, members of Bayt Shalom bought a funeral home near the campus and refurbished it into a synagogue.

Hiring a leader

As the only synagogue in town, Bayt Shalom affiliated with both the Reform and Conservative branches of American Judaism. Last year, when its rabbi announced he was leaving, the congregation set up a search committee and looked at candidates from both denominations.

The congregation could only offer a 20- to 25-hour-a-week position. But it was a relaxed place where people viewed other members as extended family.

Two finalists were flown in. Stanton, a Reform Jew, impressed the congregation most.

She brought two qualities the synagogue wanted: She was adept at dealing with a diverse group of people of different ages and backgrounds, and she was really good with kids.

"The issue of her being an African-American was not discussed," said Michael Barondes, president of the synagogue. "It was a non-issue."

New face of Judaism

American Jews were once an exclusive group of European immigrants. But of the 6 million American Jews today, about 200,000 to 250,000 are non-white, said Ira Sheskin, director of the Jewish Demography Project at the University of Miami. And the numbers of non-whites are increasing.

"American Jewry no longer comprises an ethnicity," said Leonard Rogoff, a Chapel Hill historian. "If you go into any synagogue, you're going to see Asian Jewish kids, Hispanic Jewish kids."

Recently, another black rabbi made the news because of his family ties. Rabbi Capers Funnye is first lady Michelle Obama's cousin and leads an Ethiopian Jewish community in Chicago.

And while Stanton might have taken other jobs, she wanted to live in a smaller-sized city and liked being part of a tight-knit community. She hopes to continue her counseling work to supplement her income.

What members of the congregation did not anticipate was the flood of media inquiries their small, otherwise sedate congregation suddenly received.

Immediately following Stanton's ordination, members were inundated with calls and e-mails from family and friends all over the world asking for the back story on how Stanton was hired.

"We didn't realize it was going to be such an event," said Ann Schreier, vice president of Bayt Shalom. "The hype wasn't what we were expecting."

Keeping busy

By the time she started her job on Aug. 1, Stanton already had a to-do list.

On Fridays, she visited homebound Jews at nursing homes with her "Shabbat kit," a portable bag with two electric candles, a flask of sweet wine and a miniature loaf of challah bread traditionally eaten on the Sabbath.

During her first month, she met with three interfaith groups working in Greenville. She told them she was interested in breaking barriers and building bridges of cooperation, within her congregation and outside of it.

And she started planning for the High Holidays, with their hours-long litany of prayers and chants.

The synagogue has no other paid staff, so Stanton serves as rabbi, cantor, religious school director, adult educator and administrative assistant.

By Thursday of last week, Stanton acknowledged she didn't get any sleep the night before and spent only five minutes with her daughter, Shana.

"I have to practice what I preach and take care of myself," she acknowledged.

But Stanton is eager for the challenge and obviously wants to succeed.

"It's a new day for growth and change and honing what's already good," she said.

And with that, she went on to retrieve her phone messages.

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