Shalom
Kol Haverim is a place where our community comes together to share our lives and to strive to make this world a better place.
We come here to learn, pray, celebrate and support each other with love and kindness.
Our ongoing mission is to create a vibrant, sacred congregation where each individual can feel at home and contribute his or her Jewish perspectives and personal talents to inspire us all.
שָׁלוֹם
Rabbi Kari Tuling to join Kol Haverim on July 1st
Congregation Kol Haverim (CKH) is pleased to announce the selection of its next senior Rabbi, who will join CKH on July 1st. In the midst of a raging snowstorm on Sunday February 12th, the congregation ratified the Board of Trustees' recommendation to hire Rabbi Kari Tuling. CKH President, Judy Kulick, presided over the meeting and introduced Rabbi Tuling and her family. The Rabbi spoke about her background and responded to questions from the gathering. The 12 member Search Committee, Chaired by Len Kaplan, spent the last seven months creating on-line surveys, focus group meetings, sorting through resumes, conducting on-line interviews and hosting Rabbi candidates to find Rabbi Tuling.
Below are some of the highlights of Rabbi Tuling’s career.
Rabbi Kari Tuling is the currently serving at Temple Beth Israel of Plattsburgh, New York (2012-present):
- Founded a nonprofit start-up called The Oasis Project, an afterschool program for providing tutoring and mentoring to homeless kids in temporary housing, created through coalition-building with the Interfaith Council, the Department of Social Services, the homeless shelter, and three local public school districts.
- Learned new spiritual practices through participation in the Institute for Jewish Spirituality’s second cohort, and discovered an interest in integrating movement into prayer. At Yom Kippur, I will be introducing a new healing service, in which participants are given a short prayer to contemplate as they walk through the circuits of a canvas labyrinth.
- Reorganized the congregational religious school, hired a new administrator, and worked in partnership to develop a multiple-year curriculum, create an effective teacher recruitment strategy, and identify opportunities for increasing parental engagement. Our very successful mock seder featured role-playing in which our elementary school parents pretended to be ancient Israelites. Last year’s enrollment was the highest in ten years.
- Shared the fruits of scholarship within my community, by teaching many varied adult education courses; within the Reform movement, by writing for the CCAR Press; and within the academic world, by producing scholarly presentations and articles. I am currently writing an introductory book of Jewish theology for the Jewish Publication Society.
- Developed a relationship with the local state university and gained official recognition as the first Jewish Chaplain on campus. I created a program whereby our members could each host a Hillel student as their guest at our congregational seder.
She holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Hebraic and Cognate Studies (June 2013), Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, Ohio
Dissertation: “Between Maimonides and Kant: Hermann Cohen’s Religion of Reason,” Dr. Barry S. Kogan, first reader; Dr. Michael A. Meyer, second reader.
Master of Philosophy in Hebraic and Cognate Studies (June 2008), Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, Ohio
Management Experience
Senior Manager, Marketing Communications, Cost Care, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of WellPoint, the national division of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of California (started in 1990 in a lower position; left in 1998 to go to rabbinical school)
- Headed the department responsible for sales proposals for major bids and communications materials for large employer plans (largest client: the State of Georgia State Employees’ Health Plan);
- Oversaw a line-item budget of $750,000 (marketing) and a pass-through printing budget of $2 million (communications).
As Judy Kulick has stated, the Rabbinic Search Committee was not looking for the best Rabbi, but the best Rabbi suited for our congregation.
