Thirteen South Florida rabbis — 10 of whom come from synagogues in Boca Raton — recently toured Israel on a five-day trip organized by Jewish National Fund.
The purposes of the trip were to better familiarize the rabbis with the work Jewish National Fund (JNF) is doing in Israel — and to convince the rabbis to encourage their communities to support JNF.
Roni Raab, JNF’s South Florida director, said JNF had recently organized a highly successful trip for four or five rabbis from Northern New Jersey as the pilot group — and he thought the rabbis in South Florida — particularly those in Boca Raton — would be a good group to invite on such a trip.
“The Boca Raton rabbis are such a tight-knit community across the denominations that we started with them as the core group,” Raab said. “Then we invited about seven or eight other rabbis from around South Florida — three of whom were able to join us.”
The group that went on the trip included:
• Boca Raton synagogues: Modern Orthodox: Rabbi Yaakov Gibber (Boca Jewish Center/Shaaray Tefilla); Senior Rabbi Efrem Goldberg and Rabbi Philip Moskowitz (Boca Raton Synagogue); Rabbi Benjamin Yasgur (Congregation Torah Ohr). Chabad: Rabbi Moishe Denburg and Rabbi Arele Gopin (Chabad of Central Boca); Rabbi Ruvi New (Chabad of East Boca); Rabbi Zalman Bukiet (Chabad of West Boca). Conservative: Rabbi David Baum (Congregation Shaarei Kodesh). Other: Rabbi Joshua Broide (Boca Raton Synagogue/Director of Community Engagement for the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County).