n alarming number of southern congregations lack a regular educator or rabbi. Young and old suffer from this professional leadership void. When our children leave home to take their rightful place in society, who will ensure that they proudly carry Judaism with them? As parents, we have a role to play, but who will prepare us to teach future generations? To help provide a solid Jewish education for all, the Institute of Southern Jewish Life offers educators and rabbis to small Jewish communities to teach Sunday school and Torah, conduct lifecycle events, and lead holiday and Shabbat services.

In 2003, the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life announced the hiring of its first circuit-riding rabbi to assist small congregations in the Deep South. Marshal Klaven serves as the rabbi for ISJL. The department is dedicated to continuing our religious traditions wherever Jews may live.

Throughout the region, small congregations lack rabbinic leadership. According to an ISJL study conducted in the fall of 2007, 39% of the 344 Jewish congregations in the 13-state region of the South do not have a full-time rabbi on staff. We see this problem in every state in the region, from Texas to Virginia to the Florida panhandle. Nearly half of South Carolina's congregations are without full-time rabbinic services. Seven out of eleven congregations in Arkansas lack full services and only two of Mississippi's fifteen congregations have a full-time rabbi.

Faced with these statistics, the ISJL began formulating a plan based on the classic southern institution of the circuit-riding rabbi. By hiring an itinerant rabbi to serve these small congregations of all affiliations, the ISJL can now help bring spiritual leadership to places with little or no access to professional Jewish services. The ISJL Rabbi will travel among small southern communities, leading Shabbat services, addressing school groups and community organizations, ministering at life cycle events, and teaching Torah to the young and old. Our mission is to nurture religious life in these small communities and to ensure that southern Jews have access to rabbinic services no matter where they live.

If you would like to contact Rabbi Klaven, you can email him at mklaven@isjl.org or call (601) 362-6357.