FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Harvey Sanders, President       (716)839-1489 Allan Werbow, Executive Director       (716)838-3232

July 15, 2009, Amherst, N.Y. -- Temple Beth Tzedek (TBT) is pleased to announce today that Rabbi Perry Netter of Los Angeles has been hired as the new permanent rabbi of Western New York’s largest Conservative synagogue.

By a unanimous and overwhelming vote of more than 165 congregants in attendance at a special Congregational meeting July 14, TBT approved a three-year contract for Rabbi Netter, who will start work at the synagogue on Saturday, Aug. 1, 2009, with weekly Shabbat (Sabbath) morning services.

He will be welcomed to the Congregation over the course of the next month, including during a special Jazz in the Garden event Aug. 30 in the Jerry Frank Garden in front of the synagogue, and at the synagogue’s annual Membership Dinner on Friday night, Sept. 11.  His formal installation will take place this Fall on a date to be determined.

“Rabbi Netter brings an enthusiasm, warmth, and breadth of knowledge and experience that will be welcomed by our members and the entire community, as we continue to build on the momentum from our recent merger,” reported Harvey Sanders, President of TBT.

Rabbi Netter is the first full-time permanent rabbi of the congregation, which was created in August 2008 from the merger of predecessors Temple Shaarey Zedek of Amherst, and Temple Beth El, of Tonawanda, both suburbs of Buffalo, N.Y. He succeeds Rabbi Steven Conn, also formerly of Los Angeles, who served for one year as an interim rabbi following the merger, but was not eligible for consideration for the permanent job under Rabbinical Assembly guidelines for interim rabbis.

Rabbi Netter most recently served as the assistant rabbi at Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles, where he had been since 1992. Temple Beth Am is a large, full-service metropolitan congregation with 1,000 families. During his tenure, he launched an innovative weekly Saturday morning Shabbat service known as Bait Tefillah for those seeking spiritual growth, and also designed and led a musical Friday night family service called Bo’I Kallah. He was also responsible for synagogue programming, and taught both adult education classes and high school theology classes.

Previously, Rabbi Netter spent four years as associate rabbi at Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel in Los Angeles and six years as rabbi at Temple Shaarei Tikvah in Arcadia, Calif. He is also an adjunct lecturer in Bible and rabbinics at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles.

He is a past president of the PSW Region Rabbinical Assembly, was co-chair of the International RA Convention in April 2008, and has served as a chairman or member of several national Rabbinical Assembly committees. He is also a member of the Southern California Mediation Association, and an associate member of the Family Law Division of both the Los Angeles County and Beverly Hills bar associations.

He is the author of multiple books and scholarly articles, including Divorce is a Mitzvah, an internationally acclaimed guide to divorce written to help Jewish families work through the traumas of ending a marriage.

Rabbi Netter is a 1982 graduate of Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, and received his bachelor’s degrees from the University of Judaism in Los Angeles in 1978 and 1979.

Rabbi Netter was selected by a search committee following a year-long search and interview process under the auspices of the Rabbinical Assembly, which represents rabbis in the Conservative Movement. The search was chaired by Laurence Boxer and Charlotte Gendler.

“We are delighted to have an individual of Rabbi Netter’s learning, experience, stature, and personal qualities as our congregation’s next rabbi,” Boxer said.

Rabbi Netter came for a weekend-long interview and tryout during the early summer, and was greeted enthusiastically by the congregation, impressing people of all ages with his warmth, sincerity, and ease of communicating and relating.

He has cited his greatest strengths as his integrity, his passion for Torah and his love of being a rabbi. He has also been praised by colleagues and others who know him as being a “mensch,” (Yiddish for a person of integrity and honor) with a “good heart.”

“I think we’re very lucky, particularly at this juncture for TBT, to have this kind of leader to shepherd us forward,” Gendler said.

Rabbi Netter is now in the process of relocating from Los Angeles to Buffalo with his wife and two children. “The rabbinate has been a marvelous journey for me.  It feels as if every step I have taken along the way has been a circuitous route that led me to Temple Beth Tzedek,” Netter said. “This is a community that has a great sense of its history and of its critical role in shaping the spiritual life of its members.  Together I know we are going to create an environment where people can encounter God, develop their passion for Torah and show love for all of God’s creatures.”

Rabbi Conn has accepted a permanent position with another synagogue on Long Island. Temple Beth Tzedek board members and congregants expressed regret but wished him well in his new role.  “Rabbi Conn will be sorely missed.  He was the perfect Rabbi for this transitional period and he is a real mensch,” Sanders said.

Edited version of this announcement appearing in the Buffalo News, Sun., July 19, 2009