The New Rabbi

For the last seventy-five years, Har Zion Temple on Philadelphia's Main Line has been one of the largest and most influential congregations in America. As it sought a successor to its legendary retiring rabbi Gerald Wolpe, investigative journalist Stephen Fried was given unprecedented access to Wolpe and his family, to the daily life of the huge synagogue, to the powerful national "union" for Conservative rabbis, and to a remarkable search process largely unknown to the lay world. The result is a riveting book--updated with a new afterword--about the search for personal faith, the tension between secular concerns and ancient tradition, the nature of leadership, and "the retail business of religion."