Rabbi Daniel Bar-Nahum has served as a Long Island rabbi for 13 years, pulling the community together
Officials and community members celebrated the rabbi’s accomplishments on Saturday, April 5 at Temple B’nai Torah in Wantagh.
“I was grateful and appreciative that everyone was celebrating my milestone and that we were all celebrating together, but for me it’s also celebrating the achievements of our community,” Bar-Nahum said.
Bar-Nahum moved to Long Island in 2012 to become a rabbi at East Meadow’s Temple Emanu-El. He served the community there until the temple closed in 2018. Bar-Nahum then joined Temple B’nai Torah as the congregations merged over what he called “a lengthy process.”
But Bar-Nahum said that he wasn’t like other rabbis who knew from a young age that he wanted to dedicate himself to a religious community.
“Judaism was always very important to me and I was involved in synagogues in different ways throughout my whole life, but it was not an idea of something that I had wanted to do,” the rabbi said.
Bar-Nahum was born in Israel but moved to Chicago when he was six months old. He attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville, earning a degree in French and European studies. Bar-Nahum said he grew up in a densely Jewish area and picked the Nashville school as a change of scenery to meet new people.
After graduating from college, Bar-nahum completed a fellowship at Brandeis University and then moved to Atlanta to teach at the Davis Academy, Atlanta’s Reform Jewish Day School, instead of attending law school. He said the experience there allowed him to hone his education skills.
His boss at the academy convinced Bar-Nahum to become a rabbi, leading to his going to rabbinical school at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion
“In some ways, rabbinical school is kind of like law school,” Bar-Nahum said.
He spent five years in the program, working both in the United States and Israel, saying the experience incorporated a lot of fieldwork and studying. Bar-Nahum was placed as an intern at Temple Emeth in Teaneck, NJ, where he worked for three years while taking classes.
“I really learned a lot about the day-to-day workings of doing this job,” he said. “It’s a job that comes with a lot of responsibility.”
Bar-Nahum was ordained as a rabbi in 2012, when he joined Temple Emanu-El.
“I didn’t think that Long Island was the right place for me,” he said. “I’m from the Midwest. I had lived in the South. I had hoped to go back to one of those places. Sometimes God has other plans.”
Bar-Nahum said his feelings had changed when he became connected with the community. The rabbi said it is a big milestone to be a part of the community for 13 years and he was happy to enjoy the moment with his congregation. He also said he would keep providing for Jews in the area.
“We’re just trying to keep building and keep growing and continue to be a place of meaning and comfort and joy for anybody who’s looking to have a Jewish community,” Nar-Bahum said. “We work hard to welcome everyone.”
