Beth Israel announces clergy transitions

PHOTO: From left: Rabbi Rachel Joseph and Cantor Rayna Green will become the senior clergy members at Portland's Congregation Beth Israel following the retirements of Cantor Ida Rae Cahana in 2025 and Rabbi Michael Cahana in 2027. (Andie Petkis Photography for Congregation Beth Israel)

By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
The bima at Congregation Beth Israel will look very different in the not-too-distant future. 
The synagogue recently announced plans for significant clergy transitions, the most immediate of which will be the retirement of Senior Cantor Ida Rae Cahana in 2025. Her husband, Senior Rabbi Michael Cahana, will follow her in retirement in 2027 when his current contract expires. The congregation’s board has selected current CBI clergy members Associate Rabbi Rachel Joseph and B’nai Mitzvah and Family Educator Cantor Rayna Green to become the synagogue’s next Senior Rabbi and Senior Cantor, respectively. 
Cantor Cahana will step down after 13 years of service as Beth Israel’s senior cantor, though she’s been an integral part of the shul since Rabbi Cahana was installed in 2006. 
“They didn’t have an assistant rabbi back then, so I kind of got sucked in and started working part-time,” Cantor Cahana recalled. “It was really fun for me because I was picking up whatever they didn’t have somebody to do. I would set up a sukkah at the farmers’ market and go give out materials about feeding the hungry and housing the homeless.”
With the retirement of Cantor Judith Blanc Schiff in 2012, Cantor Cahana joined her husband as a senior clergy member. The intervening years are full of special memories.
“There have been so many incredible moments,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of really over the top and beautiful, dramatic pieces, but then we’ve also had a lot of quiet times, like sitting in this office and working with a child who’s on the spectrum and seeing them grow. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate those moments almost more than the big moments, the flashy things.”
There will be a little more flash, with events in the works involving many of Cantor Cahana’s friends and collaborators throughout her career before she hands over her post to Cantor Green. 
“I’m really happy to have Cantor Green following me,” Cantor Cahana said. “We’ve known her and her lovely voice and her beautiful neshama (soul) for all this time.”
Previously a preschool teacher at Beth Israel, Cantor Green worked with Cantors Schiff and Cahana, who encouraged her to seek ordination herself. 
“They both were the people who were saying you should go to cantorial school. This seems like this is more than a hobby for you,” Cantor Green said. “When I was ordained as a Cantor, I dreamed about coming back here.”
While Portland is a special place for Cantor Green – she met her husband, Eli, at Beth Israel – it’s the team she works with, including her fellow Cantors and CBI’s education director Ben Sandler, that make her work so special.
“It’s always been very important to me that I find a team that I am inspired by and that I love collaborating with,” she said, “and that is this group.”
She looks forward to expanding her connections within the congregation and continuing to foster congregants’ connections with each other and with Judaism. 
“Something I’m really passionate about doing is helping people realize this is the place to find connection, meaning and purpose, and I’ll help you find your way in. Whenever I talk to new members, for example, that join the synagogue, I say, ‘We’re all here to help you find what your way to connect to Judaism is,’” she said. “As a Cantor, music is a super powerful tool because it helps us engage and connect and it transports us.”
While Cantor Cahana will begin retirement next year, Rabbi Cahana will wait until 2027 to retire after what will be 21 years as CBI’s senior rabbi. This date was anticipated when he and the synagogue’s board agreed to his current contract but is being announced now as Cantor Cahana’s retirement process is set in motion. 
“Of course, when one [spouse] retires, the question is, ‘When is your spouse going to do so?’” Rabbi Cahana said. “We wanted to have that really known so that the transition can be as smooth as possible.”
The transition plan is now established, with Rabbi Joseph set to take over. The long runway, and the board’s selection of their current associate rabbi, provide a level of continuity that’s unusual in rabbinical transitions, and a different tone than when Rabbi Cahana was selected to replace Rabbi Emanuel Rose, z”l.
“When I came, there was a lot of conversation. The congregation was doing well, Rabbi Rose had an amazing legacy and the board at that time felt that they had some new directions that they were interested in,” Rabbi Cahana recalled. “I think that the statement that’s being made here is that the congregation is doing well and is going in a good direction. Things will change appropriately and that’s correct, but there’s not a need nor desire for a kind of radical change.”
Rabbi Cahana sees Rabbi Joseph as the best choice for both the moment and for carrying on the traditions of the congregation.
Rabbi Joseph has a great interest in social justice. That’s been the tradition in our congregation for a long time,” Rabbi Cahana explained. “Certainly, Rabbi Rose blazed that trail. I’ve tried to follow it, and this is very deeply ingrained in her.”
Nevertheless, Rabbi Joseph’s elevation to senior rabbi is a departure from some norms. She will be CBI’s first female senior rabbi.
“I feel incredibly lucky,” she said of her elevation. “It’s not a typical path that you come to a congregation as an assistant rabbi and then you stay as long as I have and then are able to have a succession plan to be the senior. It’s really such a gift that I could be here; I can build community here.”
Rabbi Joseph spoke of the unique blend of tradition and dynamism that she’s found at Beth Israel, her first rabbinical position. 
“It’s a legacy congregation, almost 170 years old, older than the state of Oregon,” she said. “But as I like to say, it has such deep roots and at the same time, just unbelievable branches and new buds constantly.”
She’ll be leading those roots, branches and buds in 2027. Rabbi Cahana is looking forward to traveling with Cantor Cahana and seeing more of their children, as well as earning his private pilot’s license and continuing to hone his skills as an aviator. 
“[Rabbi Joseph and Cantor Green are] both incredible clergy and  know the community so well,” he said, “and are absolutely ready to guide the congregation into the next generation.”

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