Rabbi Ari Goldstein Marks 20 Years Of Service At Temple Beth Shalom

On June 1, community members and congregants of Temple Beth Shalom gathered to celebrate a significant milestone in their 64-year-history: Rabbi Ari Goldstein’s 20th anniversary serving the Jewish community at the Arnold synagogue.

Goldstein was born in Baltimore, but he considers New Orleans home. He spent his childhood there, and his parents still reside in Louisiana today. His father is a rabbi, and Goldstein grew up in the Jewish faith.

After completing undergraduate studies at the University of Pittsburgh, Goldstein pursued rabbinical school, spending one year in Jerusalem and four in Cincinnati, Ohio, at Hebrew Union College. He was ordained at the reformed rabbinical school in 1997.

Prior to arriving at Temple Beth Shalom in 2004, Goldstein served for two years in a Chicago-area synagogue and five at a synagogue in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, where he helped bring healing to a hurting congregation.

Along with his wife, Hannah, who has also served as a rabbi, Goldstein had two children when he arrived in Maryland. They now have four nearly grown kids, ranging in age from 17 to 23, including a rising senior at Broadneck High School, two in college and one starting graduate school.

Among the many books in his office – Goldstein is an avid reader – an acoustic guitar is perched on a stand. It is perhaps his newest interest; he began playing just two years ago and considers himself an “advanced beginner.” He also enjoys playing golf, rooting for the New Orleans Saints, and spending time outdoors.

Reflecting on the past 20 years serving and leading at Temple Beth Shalom, Goldstein shared several highlights. When he arrived, this congregation, too, was in a difficult season, and over the last two decades Goldstein has helped them rebuild and become a thriving community of over 350 families. He is proud of the beautiful facility, dedicated in September 2007, that houses the temple’s sanctuary and social hall.

As someone who is committed to building community, both among the Jewish people and the county as a whole, Goldstein is glad that his congregation is socially active. Whether that be helping to house the homeless through the Winter Relief program for the last 14 years or marching in the Annapolis Pride Parade, “we try to make ourselves visible as putting forth the value of social action,” he said.

“I’m also very proud of our synagogue’s commitment to Israel,” Goldstein stressed, noting that he has led a total of roughly 200 congregants on seven trips to the Holy Land over the years. While most of these trips have been pilgrimages to visit sites of consequence to the Jewish people, the rabbi’s most recent trip to Israel was “qualitatively different.”

Goldstein explained that the group he led in Israel this past June was there to serve those in need. They lent helping hands at farms where fruits and vegetables were going unpicked because workers had left, and prepared meals where cooks who had been called up to be in the Army had to leave their jobs. The team also served people who had been displaced from their homes by bombings and rocket attacks, people who were living in hotels and camps and were in need of basic essentials like clothing and household goods.

Twenty years into his tenure at Temple Beth Shalom, Goldstein has no imminent plans to retire or relocate. Instead, he looks forward to continuing to serve his congregation and community, strengthening the temple’s foundations so that he can one day – though not any day soon – leave it on solid ground.

“Because of what happened on October 7 in Israel, I see right now as a time in which people are really kind of reaching out in a more needing way for Jewish institutions and Jewish community to kind of ground them a little bit more, and I look forward to being up to that task of meeting people where they are and helping them feel more connected and more part of a community,” he shared of his aspirations for continued service to the Jewish community.

Over the years of serving as a rabbi, Goldstein emphasized that his primary goal has always been to create a sense of community. And, he is grateful for the community that has surrounded him at the temple, as well.

“As I look back, all of the times in which I felt connected to individuals here from our congregation, whether it was in their moments of great sadness or great joy, or somewhere in between, and I felt like relationships were built and I felt like meaningful connections engaged – those are the times in which I felt like I was most personally affected,” he said of walking alongside the temple’s congregation through life’s ups and downs.

To learn more about Temple Beth Shalom, visit www.annapolistemple.org.