While he's not the only Jew by choice serving as a pulpit rabbi, he's the only one whose parents spent decades bringing Jesus to the Ivory Coast - and his devotion reflects it
Rabbi Stephen Slater talks a lot about God. He credits his Baptist missionary parents. Rabbi Stephen Slater at the entrance of Temple Beth-El in Birmingham, Ala. (Kim Eriksson)
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(JTA) Rabbi Stephen Slater’s rabbinate breaks the mold in all sorts of ways.
Though he graduated from the unaffiliated Hebrew College Rabbinical School, he identifies with the Conservative movement and is the only one of the suburban Boston school’s graduates to join the movement’s rabbinic group.
Though Slater came to the rabbinate as the culmination of a decade of spiritual searching, he has thrown himself into interfaith and social justice work at the Alabama synagogue he has led for the past three years, spearheading the growth of a visitor’s center highlighting the Birmingham synagogue’s role in the civil rights struggle and developing close relationships with local Black pastors.
Got trouble? Have faith, say residents of America’s most religious state
COVID-19 may shutter their sanctuaries, and tornadoes may destroy their homes. But for many Alabamians, their faith remains a mighty fortress.
The Ragan Chapel Methodist Church was destroyed in a series of tornadoes that swept through Ohatchee, Alabama, and killed five people on March 25, 2021. “With all the stuff going with COVID-19 you can get down, and maybe this was sent to pick our faith back up: people from all over the state and other states, people don’t even speak English and they’re helping,” said the church’s pastor Danny Poss.