USCJ Review - Spring 2006
Meet Raymond B. Goldstein
Dr. Raymond B. Goldstein, United Synagogue's new international president, grew up an active Conservative Jew in an active Conservative family in New York.
But it was not until he moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, where there were fewer Jews around, that he realized exactly how important being part of a Jewish community was to him. Even since then, he has shared that passionately held conviction with others as he served in just about every United Synagogue position available. He's been, among much else, president of his synagogue, president of his region, and chairman of the council of regional presidents.
Dr. Goldstein, 60, grew up in Far Rockaway, N.Y. His family belonged to the Bayswater Jewish Center; his father was president of the congregation and of its men's club and his mother was president of its sisterhood. He went off to the University of Miami when he was 16 and after graduation headed to New Mexico State University to study environmental physiology. There he developed his interest in ornithology - and there he met the woman who soon became his wife.
Jody and Ray Goldstein moved to Lincoln so he could work toward a doctorate in zoology; he specialized in avian behavior. "When we got to Lincoln, we were newlyweds," he says. "We hit town with two dogs and not much else. We couldn't find a place to live. After four days of looking I picked up the phone book and called a local Conservative shul." That night, members of Tifereth Israel Congregation found the Goldsteins an apartment - and the Goldsteins found both a material and a spiritual home.
A few years later the couple moved to Omaha, Nebraska, and joined Beth El Synagogue, soon forming a chavurah for people their age. The Goldsteins are still friends with the people in that chavurah.
Jody and Ray Goldstein have two daughters, Heather and Stephanie. Both are married, and Heather is the mother of a year-old son. A middle daughter, Jess, died when she was 10 months old. As a way to work through their grief and at the same time help others, the Goldstein wrote a book, "Where's Jess?" about how to explain a child's absence to a young sibling. The book is now in its 12th printing. A companion sound filmstrip, "Touch the Snow," is also available.
Ray Goldstein taught at Creighton University in Omaha for eight years. He left academia, first for the pharmaceutical industry and then for the world of high technology. He is now president of Us, Inc. Jody Goldstein, an educator, is the principal of a public elementary school in Rochester, where the family now lives.
"I stop former synagogue presidents who say that the happiest day for them is the day they stopped being president," Dr. Goldstein says. "That was such a happy time for me. It was a connection to the community that I could never have had any other way." And as he continued to move up United Synagogue's organization ladder, his understanding of both Judaism and the Jewish community continued to grow. "I'm a lifelong learner, and this just felt so right," he says.
He has much that he wants to accomplish as president, Dr Goldstein says. First, he would like to develop a system of accountability. "All my officers and appointees have been asked to accept the challenge of observance in four areas - kashrut, Shabbat, study, and tefillot," he says. He would like United Synagogue to use technology to help reach more people; "I'd like to use it to get the intellectual voices of our movement to our members," he says. And he plans to make Alim, the program that seeds new congregations, a cornerstone of his tenure.
"There are so many challenges, and so many opportunities," Ray Goldstein says. And he's ready to take them on.
