Rabbis
Continued from Page 25
Neither did Elliot Strom while at Shir Ami. In fact, whenever
he sat down to work on Rabbi, Run, a takeoff on the popular John
Updike novel, something got in his way.

“I wanted to finish my book,” Strom said. “It was a dozen years
in the making, but I never had time to finish it to my satisfaction.

It’s a story about a rabbi who’s literally a runner. But he’s also
running away from things, from congregational life. From the role
of the rabbi and his family.”
Besides writing, Strom’s done his share of reading.

“I’ve had time to read for pleasure,” said the 65-year-old Strom,
who retired in 2015. “Before, everything I read had a purpose or I
was getting ready to teach a course.”
And he and his wife have become fixtures on the New York
theater and museum circuit. Then there’s the man who prepared
a special Valentine’s dinner for his wife this past year and who
loves to cook short ribs — kosher, of course.

“We’ve had this place in New York for four to five years, but we
couldn’t do as much as we wanted until now,” Strom said. Now we
go up there every other week. We like serious drama — off-
Broadway — which gives us lots to talk about after the play.

“But we’ve seen Hamilton, too.”
But for all those pursuits, they’ll still tell you don’t stop being a
rabbi simply because you don’t have a place to preach.

“I love going back to synagogue and doing things at Shir Ami,”
said Strom, who helped the congregation celebrate its 40th birth-
day Dec. 2. “I love being in the building.

“And I still get to do all about the things about the rabbinate I
love — weddings, funerals, et cetera — and still have time to
pursue other things. I get to have my cake and eat it, too.”
Meanwhile, Gans, who claims his 40-year marriage to
Reconstructionist Rabbi Ilene Schneider is the second-longest in
the world among rabbinic couples, is working on a murder
mystery in which the heroine is a South Jersey female rabbi. But
that didn’t keep him from recently conducting services in Boston.

“We’re so used to being busy in our lives we can’t imagine stop-
ping and going to the rocking chair,” he laughed. “I’m not ready
for that.”
Neither is Maslin, who’ll never forget the chain of events
surrounding a cruise he took to Iceland — on 9/11.

“We were just off Iceland and the captain the ship asked me to
conduct a service,” Maslin said. “I was the only clergyman onboard.

At that time, we knew very little. People were upset, so I just did a
general service of hope. Maybe 50 to 60 people showed up.

“But when others heard we’d had a service they went to the
captain, and I did another one for several hundred people. And
when we docked at Iceland, all the flags were at half staff.”
Not every rabbi — active or retired — has such a story to tell.

But each of them surely has had some moment when they gained
a true appreciation for how special and unique their jobs and lives
have been.

While their careers may be winding down, they’re not about to
fade away. l
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