[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 57 (Thursday, April 19, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E603]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          IN HONOR AND RECOGNITION OF RABBI ALAN B. LETTOFSKY

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. DENNIS J. KUCINICH

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 19, 2012

  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize and honor Rabbi Alan 
B. Lettofsky who is retiring from Beth Israel--The West Temple in 
Cleveland in Ohio's 10th Congressional District.
  Affiliated with Judaism's Reform Movement, Beth Israel serves the 
Jewish Community of Cleveland's west side and western suburbs and is 
the only synagogue geographically located in the City of Cleveland. 
Beth Israel's roots go back to 1910 when the West Side Jewish Center 
was founded on Cleveland's Near West Side. It merged with Beth Israel 
in 1957 to form Beth Israel--The West Temple.
  Born and bred in Cleveland, Alan Lettofsky was educated at Brandeis 
University, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Jewish Theological 
Seminary of America, and Yale University. He serves Beth Israel--The 
West Temple as their part-time rabbi while also teaching Modern Hebrew 
and Jewish History at Kent State University. He was Associate Professor 
at the Siegal College of Judaic Studies and at Case Western Reserve 
University for several years. He has taught in the Religion Department 
at John Carroll University.
  Rabbi Lettofsky started his career as Visiting Professor at the 
Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and then 
taught for three years in the Department of Religious Studies at the 
University of Virginia. Throughout most of his professional career, 
Rabbi Lettofsky worked for Hillel, the Jewish campus ministry--for ten 
years as the director of Hillel at the University of Wisconsin-Madison 
and for 13 years as the Regional Director of Hillel in Northeastern 
Ohio. Dedicated to egalitarianism and self-empowerment in Jewish 
communal prayer and fellowship, Rabbi Lettofsky co-founded and actively 
participated in the Library Minyan which met in the library of 
Congregation Beth Am in Cleveland Heights in the 1980s and 90s.
  In recent years, Rabbi Lettofsky has been a member of a small 
committee of the Rabbinical Assembly that is preparing a new High Holy 
Day prayerbook for Judaism's Conservative Movement. In the early 1990s, 
Rabbi Lettofsky was one of 12 rabbis who served on the Commission on 
Human Sexuality of the Rabbinical Assembly. That Commission issued a 
Rabbinic Letter on Intimate Relations, entitled ``This Is My Beloved, 
This Is My Friend.''
  I was pleased to know Rabbi Lettofsky in 2000 when other civic 
leaders and I worked to stop the shutdown of several hospitals in the 
greater Cleveland area. Rabbi Lettofsky spoke out with religious 
leaders of a wide diversity of faiths to stress the spiritual 
importance of healing the sick and making health care available to all. 
Rabbi Lettofsky continues to serve as part-time chaplain at Hillcrest 
Hospital in Mayfield Heights on behalf of the Jewish Federation of 
Cleveland.
  Mr. Speaker and colleagues, I am pleased to honor Rabbi Lettofsky and 
thank him for his many years of dedication and service to the 
community. I wish him, his wife of more than 40 years, Jean Loeb 
Lettofsky, and their three children and five grandchildren, many happy 
and healthy years to enjoy his retirement and for continued service to 
the people.

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