March 2016

We are writing to update you on our search for a new religious leader. As you know, it has been
a very busy time both for our Search Committee and our Board as we have all worked hard to
move through and support our search process.

Vera Broekhuysen’s visit to the Hebrew School on Sunday, February 28, will be our last
candidate visit, and it marks the end of an important phase of the search. With that said, several
important steps remain before we can secure and announce the hiring of a new religious leader.

1. The Search Committee will review all of the information about each candidate while
considering a number of factors beyond what congregants observed in the Shabbat and

Hebrew School services:

 The candidate’s previous Jewish and non-Jewish education and work experience
 The candidate responses during two extensive interviews
 Congregant feedback including survey results
 Feedback from Annette Lawson, our education coordinator, and Rosanna
Wertheimer, our co-president in charge of Jewish life, who have both interviewed
each candidate
 Discussions with the candidate’s references
 The candidate’s interactions overall with the Search Committee and with other

2. Following this extensive review and discussion, the Search Committee will submit their
recommendation to the Board. At the same time, a Contract Committee will work out the
details of the job description and contract to be submitted to the Board.
synagogue members that helped coordinate the candidate visits.

3. The Board will then consider the Search Committee and Contract Committee’s
recommendations and make a final decision about which candidate to whom we will
make an offer and also the content of the offer.

Once we have offered a contract to a candidate, it is common for there to be negotiations to
refine the job description and terms of the agreement.

The Search Committee, Board, and Contract Committee have been planning ahead in order to
move the process along as quickly as possible, but each step requires time and careful
deliberation. The process also must be confidential until a contract is signed, which means that
while you can rest assured that we are all working diligently to reach a successful conclusion,
our progress will not be very visible.

We are very fortunate to have three outstanding candidates, all of whom have expressed interest
in serving our congregation for more than a year. We hope that whoever becomes our religious
leader will have been a top choice for many of you, but we know there is no way that it will have
been the top choice for all of you; we all have our own priorities and preferences, and each
candidate brings different strengths. We hope you will join us in welcoming our new religious
leader warmly as he or she settles into our community and demonstrates his or her full potential
in contributing to our congregation.

We would also like to offer our gratitude and appreciation to our Search Committee for the
hours, days, weeks and months they have dedicated to this search. Thank you to Janet
Encarnacion, Sharon Friedman, Stuart Freiman, Peter Schwartz and Charlie Seelig for your
ongoing dedication and commitment to our synagogue and congregation!

Fondly,
Sammi Robertson and Rosanna Wertheimer, Co-Presidents