Beth El Congregation is bringing in Rabbi Abe Friedman to join its clergy team on a part-time basis for this program year as it begins a search for a new full-time rabbi in the fall.
Longtime Beth El Senior Rabbi Steven Schwartz is set to retire in the spring of 2026. Rabbi Dana Saroken was recently voted to become the next senior rabbi at Beth El, and the congregation will be looking to hire either an associate or assistant rabbi to partner with Saroken.
Friedman comes to Baltimore after serving as senior rabbi at Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel in Philadelphia for over a decade and spending five years at Anshe Emet Synagogue in Chicago.
“We welcome Rabbi Friedman to our Beth El community,” Beth El President Rebecca Fruman said in a press release. “With his experience and wisdom, Rabbi Friedman will be a support in helping our clergy meet the wide-ranging needs of our members while strengthening our congregation.”
Friedman and his partner, Rebecca Krasner, recently moved to the Baltimore area after Krasner took the executive director role at The Associated’s recently created Center for Countering Antisemitism and Hate.
Freidman was ordained by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in 2010 and has been an important figure in the Philadelphia Jewish community for a decade.
“I am delighted to welcome Rabbi Friedman to our clergy team,” Schwartz said in the press release. “His compassion and genuine ability to connect with people will be a wonderful addition to Beth El’s spiritual life. Rabbi Friedman brings not only skill and insight but also a warmth that I know our Beth El community will embrace.”
Ben Wachstein, Beth El’s executive director, said that a former colleague informed him that Friedman was moving to Pikesville. Wachstein said that he then reached out to Friedman, and the two connected and came away from a meeting with the sense that working together over the next year could be a great opportunity.
“[Friedman] was a free agent at least for this year. He wasn’t sure he wanted to continue doing pulpit work in the long term, and we knew that we were going to be entering into a full rabbinic search for an assistant rabbi sometime this year. So, having an experienced and wonderful clergy member to be a pinch hitter for the year, it’s a gift, and we weren’t going to pass it by,” Wachstein said.
Wachstein said the benefit of bringing in a rabbi with Friedman’s experience means that Friedman can jump right into the job and integrate himself into the congregational community.
Wachstein added that Friedman is an accomplished teacher and will be helping with adult education. The synagogue is confident that Friedman’s wealth of experience in Philadelphia will allow him to provide for Beth El in a variety of ways.
The new rabbi’s availability comes at the same time that Schwartz is planning his retirement after more than 27 years with the congregation.
“It is possible that Rabbi Friedman will want to look into that, and we’ve had that conversation, but we are committed to doing a full national search to bring in either an assistant or an associate rabbi,” Wachstein said.
Wachstein said that the rabbinical search process will begin around November, and Beth El will be putting together a task force to get a feel for the desires of the community.
“We’ll get lots of resumes. We’ll whittle them down and start bringing people in. Looking for a new rabbi is one of the more exciting times in synagogue life and generally brings out the best of us,” Wachstein said.
The new rabbi is expected to start on June 1, 2026.
bhamelin@midatlanticmedia.com
