Rabbis
Continued from Page 23
For Elliot Strom, rabbi emeritus at Shir Ami in Newtown, it’s
cooking. He’s become a bit of an amateur chef after taking classes
at Sur La Table in New York City, where he and his wife, Susan,
have an apartment.

For George Stern, it’s working in social justice in the nonprofit
world, where he was director of an interfaith group in Mount Airy
for years until funding cutbacks led to its demise. And, like many of
his rabbinical counterparts, he spends time with his grandchildren.

For Robert Layman, it’s both teaching and taking courses at the
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Temple University’s Center
City campus. Lately, he’s taught a class on Israel
and the Jewish world, essentially a current
events course. He’s also taken classes in
the arts, history, politics and languages,
and he’s learning a little Russian and
polishing up on his high school French.

“They have a variety of courses and a
membership of around 1,300,” said the
84-year-old Layman, the former
regional director of United Synagogue
of Conservative Judaism, after being
ROBERT LAYMAN
rabbi at Beth Tikvah B’nai Jeshurun in
Erdenheim for 14 years. “Most of the
people are in their 70s and 80s. A few are in their 90s.”
Layman’s other pursuit has been working with the Rabbinical
Assembly, which has a division for retired rabbis and holds an
annual convention. He served as president in 2009 and 2010, and
Elliot Strom and George Simon.

has kept up with them since.

Closer to home, he’s involved with the weekly lunch-and-learn
sessions at Congregation Adath Jeshurun in Elkins Park. He also
teaches adult education at Congregation Beth Sholom and gives
D’Var Torah periodically.

“One problem many retiring rabbis face is they can’t let go,”
Layman said. “Early in my rabbinate, I followed someone who’d
been there for 40 years. He didn’t want to retire but had to and was
bitter about that.

“You have to let go and let someone else take over. You also
have to plan to be active. The worst affliction for anyone is to be
idle. I’m in good health, and I’ve maintained that by being active.”
While Layman stayed active remaining close to home, Simeon
Maslin has done it by splitting time, spending a good chunk of it
at his new summer retreat in Maine, where he’s not only devel-
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“I was pretty confident I’d have things to do,” said the 85-year-
old Maslin, who retired from Reform Congregation Keneseth
Israel in Elkins Park in 1999. “I like to write. I’ve written three
books and published 108 articles.

“But I sort of stumbled into something that’s made life interest-
ing and pleasant over the past 19 years. I bought a retirement
place in Brunswick, Maine, near Bowdoin College and made
friends with lot of faculty at Bowdoin.

“They asked me to serve as their rabbi for the High Holidays there.

There’s about 100 to 125 students and 25 to 30 faculty who attend.

And what happened after that was I started a Shabbat morning
chavurah using their facilities, and I sort of became the town rabbi.

“Our lives in Maine have become very rich because of that.”
According to Maslin, who’s been the rabbi on a number of
cruises and will soon set sail for New Zealand and Australia, being
a rabbi can’t be the only thing in your life.

“You have to have some outside interest other than the
rabbinate,” said Maslin, who, in his early years, was rabbi on the
island of Curaçao, where he helped merge the Sephardic syna-
gogue considered the oldest in the Western hemisphere with a
new one. “If all you have is the rabbinate and you retire, there’s not
much for you do to.

“The book I just finished, Uncle Sol’s Women, is my first novel.

It’s been percolating in my mind for years. But I had no time as a
rabbi to do that kind of serious writing.”
See Rabbis, Page 26
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