"Synagogue-of-the-Month"Our Featured Member Synagogue for December 2006 is Congregation Beth Elohim of Acton. This year Beth Elohim is honoring Rabbi Lewis Mintz and Naomi Katz Mintz for their 30 years of service. Beth Elohim is an independent community synagogue with members in Acton and nine surrounding towns. CONGREGATION BETH ELOHIM CELEBRATES AN EXTRAORDINARY MILESTONE Congregation Beth Elohim is an independent, progressive synagogue, run by a dynamic group of professionals, lay leaders, and volunteers. Our rabbi, Rabbi Lewis Mintz, is not your average Rabbi. For any member of the clergy to serve the same congregation for 30 years is highly unusual. However, Rabbi Mintz and his wife Naomi Katz Mintz have been with our congregation since 1976, when it was a community of only 35 families. Since then, they have together fostered the growth of Congregation Beth Elohim to over 330 congregant families residing in Acton and nine surrounding towns. In 2002, we completed our third expansion, with a design recently included in the book, Houses of God, Religious Architecture for a New Millennium. For this extraordinary milestone leading the Acton area Jewish community, Rabbi Mintz and Naomi Katz Mintz will be honored this year by our congregation. Rabbi Mintz and Naomi Katz Mintz have nurtured a true community synagogue. Over these three decades, Beth Elohim has remained an independent congregation, reaching across the usual denominational lines. Rabbi Lewis and Naomi have maintained Beth Elohim's progressive orientation which combines an appreciation for the sanctity of Jewish traditions with sensitivity to the needs of a religiously and socially diverse congregation. They have led a community where life-long Jewish learning is the norm, and synagogue attendance is a "hands-on" participatory experience for all ages. Rabbi Mintz is proud of Beth Elohim's outstanding Religious School with 250 students, the full-time JCC pre-school and summer camp, and the extensive adult education program that covers everything from biblical and rabbinic texts to Israeli dancing. He is equally proud of the on-going efforts of his congregation in reaching out to welcome new families into the fabric of synagogue life. Naomi has been integral in welcoming Beth Elohim's youngest families by providing Tot Shabbat services for young children. Her on-going role as educator both at Beth Elohim's Religious School and for 19 years at the Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston has touched generations of children and their families. Congregation Beth Elohim is committed to creating an open and welcoming environment for Jews of all ages and varying degrees of religious observance, including interfaith families. To learn more about us, please visit our website or call (978) 263-3061.
Congregation Beth Elohim
Clergy: Rabbi Lewis Mintz; Education Director: Leann Shamash; Family and Youth Educator: Heidi Lovitz |