The Golders Green rabbi departing after two decades serving the community - The Jewish Chronicle

When it comes to leaving a shul community, “most rabbis are either dragged out or carried out”, according to Rabbi Dr Harvey Belovski.

“Neither of those sounded like appealing options to me,” Belovski says wryly, while discussing what is next for him and his wife Vicki.

Last October, they announced they were stepping down as Golders Green United Synagogue’s senior rabbinic couple after 20 years’ service.

For Belovski, who previously served as rabbi at Loughton and Ilford Federation synagogues, a rabbinic career is no longer a lifelong vocation. As it is, he has “never only been a community rabbi. I have always found that doing multiple jobs has always been beneficial and more interesting.”

As well as his synagogue role, he is chief strategist and rabbinic head of University Jewish Chaplaincy and the author of four books. He is also a regular contributor to BBC Radio 2’s The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show.

Vicki has also managed to combine Jewish communal life with a busy working life elsewhere, as a freelance journalist and editor.

As Rabbi Belovski steps away from the pulpit, he will be taking his experience as a faith leader in a different direction, starting a full-time career as an organisational psychologist.

“I’m going from one lion’s den to another,” he laughs. “Helping companies be as productive as they can be is something that I have always done, and I am excited to work on this full time.”

The couple, who met at Oxford University and were 35 when they joined Golders Green Synagogue (GGS), wrote to members to tell them about the move.

In the letter, they said: “We recognise that leadership includes knowing not just how and when to lead — but also when the time has come to pass on the baton.

“This decision has been a difficult one, but we are confident that it is right for GGS and for us,” adding that while they were “sad” to be leaving, they were “excited about moving to the next phase of our professional and family lives”.

Reflecting on their two decades at Golders Green, the couple, who have seven children and one granddaughter, wrote that with the support of “outstanding” lay leaders and professional staff, “we have worked to transform this community in almost every way”.

Golders Green United Synagogue (Photo: Copyright Unknown)

During their time at Golders Green, they have helped establish a primary school — Rimon —as well as an eruv.

Talking today about the huge growth of the synagogue, which today serves around 350 households, and the establishment of the school, Rabbi Belovski says: “There were five kids when we came here, and now there are 200. The school didn’t exist, and now it is full.”

The challenge for the incoming couple, who have yet to be recruited, will be “engaging the missing middle,” says the rabbi, adding: “They will need to think about the long-term engagement of people in their thirties or forties.”

Not a unique challenge, he says, but one that he personally has outgrown.
“I have become professionally obsessed with autonomy, and I like to do whatever I like.”

While their departure from the synagogue will no doubt be keenly felt, it has in some ways been a gradual, rather than a sudden, one. About eight years ago, Rabbi Belovski went part-time in his role at the synagogue and started taking on advisory work at other organisations.

“We had already been here for 12 years. We had achieved a lot of what we had wanted to do, but it was time to start moving on.”

Luckily for him, as an organisational psychologist, one of his first clients will be a familiar one. He has recently been appointed as a consultant for the whole of the United Synagogue, where he is already advising on recruitment.

“It is more about advice on strategic issues. We are already discussing things like psychometric testing of rabbis in recruitment.”

But why would the board of a commercial company outside of the Jewish world want to hire a retired rabbi to be their adviser or redesign their team?

There has been a generational shift, says Belovski.

“Younger executives, especially, are very interested in values-based leadership.”

“It is becoming more popular for value-based businesses to say: ‘Yes, you can make a profit, but it must have a stakeholder, rather than a shareholder approach.’ I think a lot about this type of thing.”

His plan is to bridge the gap between community and commercial work. “Most financialised businesses are only interested in the shareholders, but you can still have values like integrity and community and fairness. I am interested in companies that recognise the importance of stakeholders, the employees and the suppliers.”

Belovski thinks companies often struggle with the conflict that arises between financial success and values, and he believes that he is in a unique position to help them work this out. “I don’t think there are many people with a rabbinic and faith background in this field,” he says.

To exemplify the wealth of knowledge and values-based perspective he would bring to a corporate role, he says: “The Torah has a system of debt relief. It doesn’t allow for a vast accumulation of property.

“It does not allow the charging of interest, and if we had an economy based on these ideas, it would look very different. Those values are very interesting to people.”

Returning to the theme of whether we should expect our rabbis to lead our communities until retirement age, Belovski says: “People often stay too long as rabbis and they feel trapped. You either get desperate to leave, or people are desperate for you to leave, and I don’t want to be in either of those situations.”

He didn’t want to become “a rabbi who outstays their welcome. I want people to feel that we have done a good job. And I think that is the case.”

His departure forms part of a larger exodus of United Synagogue rabbis this year.

“There are a lot of people leaving the rabbinate,” he admits, “but I don’t think it can be put down to one thing.

"Every organisation needs to think about what it can do to retain people. Some of those things the US does well and some of them we are working on. I am involved in those conversations.”

He thinks “a global shortage of clergy” is not unique to the Jewish world, but “the desire to go into this kind of work goes in peaks and troughs.

“What it shows is that you can change careers a couple of times.

“You would have thought a minister of religion was a job for life, but maybe it is OK to give 15 or 20 years to this and then do something different.”

Topics:

Golders Green

United Synagogue