Paul J. Reichenbach: a life of influencing Jewish youth

Paul J. Reichenbach: a life of influencing Jewish youth

Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin

I am part of a group of old friends who have the tradition of going on a special trip every year. What we all have in common is that we are veterans of the Reform youth movement. We have known each other, in some cases, for almost sixty years. 

Several years ago, we were in Austin, Texas. We were sitting in the lobby of the hotel, and an assistant manager brought us some drinks on the house. 

We engaged her in conversation, and I recognized her surname as an Arab name. I asked where she was from. She told me that her family was Palestinian and that “the Zionists” had evicted her family from their homes in 1967. 

This was a few weeks after October 7, and I was in no mood to hold back.

I turned to her and I said, "I am a Zionist.” 

She said, "Really? I've never met a Zionist." 

“Well, you just did,” I said. Then I pointed to the other men sitting around the table: “And so is he, and so is he, and so is he…”

“Wow,” she said.

We started talking, and I showed her pictures of Jerusalem, both west Jerusalem and the Old City. “This is Jerusalem, I said.” “It is also Al-Quds, which means that this is your legacy, as well." 

She was in tears, and she said: "I would love to visit." 

I pointed to one of the men sitting around the table, and I said, "You see Paul over there? He could make it happen for you. He's brought more kids to Israel over the last half-century than almost anyone in Jewish history. He can do it for you." 

She smiled.

I was referring to Paul J. Reichenbach, who has died at the age of 74, after a brief battle with ALS.

Paul Reichenbach was legendary in the Reform movement. Starting in 1975, he served on the staff of the youth programs of the URJ (formerly UAHC), serving as the co-director of the URJ/UAHC Youth Division. At the time of his retirement in 2019, he had been one of its longest serving professionals.

Paul grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, and was a proud product of Temple Israel, where his rabbi was the legendary Roland Gittelson. Paul was extremely proud of his German Jewish roots and traveled with his son, Daniel, who is now a rabbi, to their ancestral town of Halberstadt, from which Paul’s own father had fled.

Paul and I often discussed his family connections. I think he always sensed, in some way, that he was “a brand plucked from the fire.” He sensed that he had a responsibility – not only to continue Jewish life in a meaningful and creative way, but also, to create that fire in the lives of Reform Jewish youth.

That was Paul Reichenbach’s unwritten job description.

His resume was as large as his appetite – not only for food, but for experiences and life. He had been the co-director of the URJ Kutz Camp-Institute in Warwick, NY, the Reform movement’s teen leadership camp. He oversaw the URJ’s network of 18 North American camps. For years, he was the voice of the Reform movement – his deep tones serving as the voiceover for Reform movement biennials. Leave it to Paul Reichenbach to leave this world on the morning of the second day of Rosh HaShanah – with its Torah portion that proclaimed that Abraham’s descendants would be as “numerous as the stars of heaven and the sands on the seashore” (Genesis 22: 17).

The message here: it will be impossible to count your descendants -- as impossible as counting the stars and the grains of sand.

So, too, with Paul. Consider that he spent over forty years helping to create Reform camp programs (what some believe to be the crown jewel of the movement), recruiting and managing staff, who themselves would go on to teach and transform.

So, how many young people (and by extension, their families) did Paul’s career influence, cumulatively? According to the URJ website: https://urj.org/what-we-do/engaging-youth-families-young-children The URJ’s youth programs – summer camps, Israel programs, and NFTY: The Reform Youth Movement – engage more than 20,000 youth, teens, and young adults each year.

Let us imagine: That would be more than 800,000 distinct youth experiences – over the course of his professional life.

And then, consider that many of those young people would go on and have their own children and grandchildren, who might have similar experiences. \

And not just other people’s kids. All three of his children -- Joey, Sara, and Daniel – had major Israel connections – including living there, and Daniel served in the IDF in Gaza in 2014.

Let’s just imagine the number of those young people became Jewish professionals – rabbis, cantors, educators, camp directors, Hillel directors, Federation personnel, JCC workers – who emerged from Paul’s mentorship. And the gift of that mentorship did not end with the Reform movement. It embraced the entire Jewish world. Those whom he taught, taught others, and it created a ripple effect – what we might call the immortality of influence.

Yes, try to count the grains of sand on the shores of the sea – and you will see how difficult it is to imagine Paul Reichenbach’s reach.

Though it is fun to try.

This is what we know: The programs that Paul helped create, design, and nurture actually work.

Amy L. Sales and Leonard Saxe of Brandeis University's Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies conducted the field study behind "How Goodly Are Thy Tents": Summer Camps as Jewish Socializing Experiences. They spent time at twenty Jewish residential camps across the country observing daily life, meals, and Sabbath rituals.

They discovered what we always sensed – that camp's immersive, round-the-clock environment lets Jewish education and identity-formation happen informally and experientially — through communal living, shared ritual, music, and peer culture — in a way that classroom-based supplementary schooling cannot replicate.

But, this is what the authors of that study also knew: that such successes depend heavily on the Jewish commitment of camp owners, directors, and staff. All of which was directly under Paul’s management and influence.

But, let me bring you back to that moment in the hotel lobby in Austin, when I introduced that young woman of Palestinian heritage to Paul, and not-so-jokingly told her that Paul could get her on a trip to Israel – a trip that would have included, in some way, her own definition of Palestine.

I once joked with Paul and called him a Zionist hero – up there with Ben Gurion and Golda. He laughed it off, but I was utterly serious.

Because, what else would you call someone who directed, for decades, NFTY in Israel teen travel programs, and who had oversight of NFTY-EIE, the semester-in-Israel high-school program (now called URJ Heller High), and the College Academic Year program? And who did so, even and especially during periods of intense concern over security?

And, again, like the sands on the shores of the sea and the stars in the heavens, I am trying to imagine how many kids were involved in those Israel trips, during Paul’s tenure.

That is one huge lesson from the life of Paul J. Reichenbach, and it is a lesson that all Jewish professionals need to learn, and re-learn, and it is a lesson that is beyond pertinent during these Days of Awe.

In Tender Is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote: "Well, you never knew exactly how much space you occupied in people's lives.”

That was Paul Reichenbach. I do not think that he ever knew exactly how much space he occupied in so many people’s lives – including and especially the life of the Reform movement.

I do not think that Paul ever knew, or ever imagined (he was actually too humble to try) how deep his work was, and how extensive its influence had been.

The truth is: We never really know the ultimate map of our vision and our reach. Rabbis, cantors, teachers, educators, camp directors – somewhere along the line, we must have learned that the real psychic and spiritual rewards do not always, or even often, come when we are at a specific professional position.

It is a much longer arc than that. It is an arc that lasts a lifetime, and even beyond. It can reach into several lifetimes.

It was the custom to write, at the end of a Hebrew book, tam v’nishlam – it is over, and it is complete.

That was Paul Reichenbach’s book of life.

It might be over, but it is far from complete.

Because we never really know how, and when, that book is completed.

Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin, the co-founder/co-director of Wisdom Without Walls: an online salon for Jewish ideas, is a veteran leader in the Reform movement.