Rabbi George Gittleman has arguably been approaching retirement with the same rigor that fueled his decades of work.

Since stepping down from his post in late June as spiritual leader of Santa Rosa’s Congregation Shomrei Torah, Gittleman, 61, has been on the go.

An avid outdoorsman, he fly fished in the Trinity Alps; spent time with his wife, Laura, in British Columbia; backpacked in the Cascades with his son Levi; and wound his way down the coast, birding, hiking and walking the beach.

It was all “part of the unwind,” he said, after nearly three decades heading Shomrei Torah, home of progressive Reform Judaism in Sonoma County, and one of the largest congregations in the region.

During his 28-year tenure — one of the longest among current faith leaders in the area — Gittleman has overseen a near quadrupling of the Santa Rosa congregation; the construction of a new synagogue on Bennett Valley Road; and the spiritual needs of a community devastated by disasters and a global pandemic.

During the 2017 North Bay wildfires, 32 families from the congregation lost their homes.

With roughly 1,200 people or about 460 families in the congregation, sharing in the suffering of his flock was both a privilege and, at times, a hardship, he said.

“Burying so many people that I love, that for me … that's never gotten easier,” Gittleman said, sitting in his office during an interview in the weeks before his retirement. “It's honorable. I feel honored and blessed to be able to be with people through the full range of life. And it's hard, it's hard to see people suffer, it’s hard to suffer along with them.”

Gittleman’s service at Shomrei Torah and in the wider community in Sonoma County was recognized recently by the governor’s office. In a proclamation penned by Acting Gov. Sen. Mike McGuire, July 8 was declared “Rabbi George Gittleman Day.“

“Rabbi George is a pillar in our community, from his thoughtful, heartfelt sermons, to his advocacy to lift up the most vulnerable to his social justice work throughout the North Bay, he has dedicated his life to advancing positive change, and the North Bay is stronger because of his work,” McGuire wrote.

The longevity of his tenure is such that he’s touched the lives of generations of local worshippers.

When Gittleman arrived at Shomrei Torah in 1996, Eli Weinzveg, the congregation’s current board president, was only 10 years old. Since then Gittleman has been a part of every major moment in Weinzveg’s life.

Gittleman performed his bar mitzvah, as well as his brother’s a few years later. After college, when Weinzveg returned to Santa Rosa with his fiance, Gittleman officiated Weinzveg’s wedding. Then came the bris, a baby naming ceremony, for his child.

“He buried most of my grandparents,” Weinzveg said. “Every major milestone event a human being could have in the Jewish world, I've kind of been able and lucky enough to experience with George, and that's been an incredible privilege because he's, he's a mensch.”

“He's a wonderful human being,” Weinzveg added. “He cares deeply about not just the Sonoma County Jewish community but the greater Jewish community. And he's wise, he's a great teacher, and he's compassionate.”

Reflecting on his role, roots

A few weeks before he retired, The Press Democrat had a chance to sit down with Gittleman and reflect on his career and work. He discussed his role as a faith and community leader and a steadying voice during tragic times, including the 2017 fires, the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and rising violence in the Middle East.

Gittleman was born in Chicago in 1962, but his family moved to Louisville, Kentucky, when he was 3 years old after his mother remarried. His paternal grandfather, Jacob J. Gittleman, was a conservative rabbi in Louisville for 50 years.

He died in 1971, when George was still a young boy, and Gittleman said his family “fled Jewish life” shortly after.

“I loved my grandfather, but apparently it was somewhat oppressive growing up in that environment,” Gittleman said. “So as soon as he was gone my family was kind of done.”

His family stopped going to synagogue and Gittleman attended public and private schools. He attended an Episcopal school for a significant portion of his childhood.

After high school, he attended the University of Vermont, where he played collegiate soccer and received a degree in American History. It was during his junior year in college that Gittleman studied abroad for a semester at the University of Tel Aviv.

In Israel, Gittleman reconnected with his Jewish roots, though more with Jewish history and culture than with Judaism or organized religion, he said.

“I was a good student and unlike many year-abroad students, I dug in and learned a lot about Jewish history there and Israeli history,” he said.

After he finished his studies at the University of Vermont, Gittleman returned home to Louisville for the summer and decided to “seek my fortune” in the West. He had visited California with his mother when he was younger and was left with fond memories.

At that time, he was an avid rock climber and California’s Yosemite National Park was, and is still, one of the world’s rock climbing hallowed places, he said.

“I was really drawn to Northern California, so I got in my car and made my way west, got a job, ended up in marketing and sales for seven years,” he said.

Before turning to rabbinical studies, Gittleman worked a number of marketing and sales jobs.

A rabbinical life was something he’d considered ever since he was a child, growing up in his grandfather’s shadow.

“Even though he died when I was very small, I often thought I’d want to be a rabbi, really, from a very small age,” he said, adding that his grandfather, “really inspired me as a little boy. He told me stories and made me feel special.”

He was also heavily influenced by his parents, who were both divorced and with children when they met in Chicago in the 1960s.

His father, David Gittleman, was an attorney in Louisville, where he worked for the city and later the local transit authority. His practice focused on a variety of legal arenas, from criminal to tort cases. He was a tall, charismatic man with a big voice and large personality, as well as a sharp mind. He loved to solve problems, enjoyed people and cared deeply about social justice.

His mother, Joan Frentz, had her own retail business selling fabrics and doing independent interior decorating. He said she was a progressive thinker who also cared about social justice.

“Her way of repairing the world was more like one person at a time. She would lift individuals up,” Gittleman said.

Path to a spiritual life

Gittleman’s time studying abroad in Tel Aviv marked the beginning of what he called a “cultural awakening” that spurred an intellectual interest in Judaism.

Rock climbing proved another guiding influence into a more spiritual life — chasing “awe of the ineffable,” as he described his trips into Yosemite in the mid-1980s.

“There’s a moment in rock climbing where really it all goes away and it’s just you and the rock, or just you and your partner, as well,” he said. “And in that liminal space, I felt such freedom. It was an awesome place but it’s also kind of like a drug experience.”

During one of those climbs, Gittleman fell 50 feet. The fall should have taken his life, he said; instead he came away with a cracked vertebrae in his neck and broken ribs.

“After that fall — I still rock climb, by the way — but my spiritual life deepened,” he said. “And I started to look for a spiritual home and it took me about a year to recover.”

During his recovery, Gittleman took an introduction to Judaism class at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco and starting attending services. The rabbi that taught the class knew his grandfather and suggested that Gittleman attend services.

It was an older synagogue, with members who had fled World War II-era Germany to Shanghai and found their way after war to San Francisco. “They were all much older than me, but I found a home there and they were really happy to see someone under 70. And they were very, very sweet.”

There, Rabbi Ted Alexander, a German-born Holocaust refugee who served for decades at Congregation B’nai Emunah, inspired Gittleman and even performed his adult bar mitzvah ‒ he had never had a bar mitzvah as a child.

“I remember him saying that you can be whoever you want to be … he inspired me,” he said.

For his rabbinical studies, Gittleman attended theHebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, spending his first year at the school’s campus in Jerusalem and his remaining four years at its campus in Cincinnati.

Gittleman’s wife Laura — who he met earlier while he was a salesman in San Francisco — converted to Judaism after spending a year with him in Jerusalem.

“We never really looked back, honestly. It was pretty much like love at first sight and we’ve been on this journey together ever since,” he said.

Growing Shomrei Torah

The recovery from his near-death accident in Yosemite left him in a great deal of pain and, as he put it, in “one of those dark nights of the soul.” He realized that life is “short and precious.” It also helped propel his inward search for solace, where that pursuit had previously been more grounded in physical experiences.

After rabbinical school, Gittleman requested a post in Santa Rosa through the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Reform Rabbinic leadership organization. Gittleman said a rabbi at the conference tried to keep him from applying because he felt the Santa Rosa congregation needed a more experienced rabbi to shepherd its growth.

“I was taught by my mother to pursue what you think is right for you, and I pushed hard and basically either made them or inspired them to let my application come through,” he said.

It was 1996, and Shomrei Torah had only about 120 families and shared a space with Christ Church United Methodist on Yulupa Avenue for 31 years. Gittleman became the congregation’s first full-time rabbi.

Just a few years after Gittleman joined the congregation, he and its leaders started planning and fundraising for a new $6 million synagogue. The final cost was more than that due to construction slowdowns and rising costs.

Located on a hilltop above Farmers Lane and Bennett Valley Road, the synagogue was at the time the first new temple built in the county in three decades.

Forging lasting friendships

Over the years, Gittleman has brought more people into its fold by constantly reaching out to work with other community leaders, often forming strong relationships through difficult conversations, including one of the most vexed: violence in the Middle East.

Discussions over the Israel-Palestine conflict were the “spark” that 15 years ago brought together Gittleman and the Rev. Dale Flowers, former pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Santa Rosa, Flowers said.

Flowers, who also retired earlier this year, said he and Gittleman have been friends ever since and over the years have met on a regular basis with other local rabbis and pastors. The meetings have moved from issues to “more of knowing each other and working together.”

“What makes Rabbi Gittleman so appealing and trustworthy is his vulnerability and authenticity. But also he’s very compassionate,” Flowers said. “He’s a man who cares deeply about justice and exhibits biblical justice in every way, in my opinion.”

Rabbi Irwin Keller of Congregation Ner Shalom in Cotati called Gittleman a natural leader in the work of coalition building, particularly in the area of social justice.

“He is often the first of the county rabbis and first of county clergy to identify a way that we can come together and offer a public response, a moral witness,” Keller, who is on sabbatical in Germany, wrote in an email. “He’s easy to collaborate with and I will miss cahooting with him.”

Santa Rosa Police Chief John Cregan called Gittleman “a heart for our community” who served for years on the police department’s Chief’s Community Advisory Team, acting as a bridge between law enforcement and the faith community.

In spring 2005, before the congregation’s Bennett Valley synagogue was even built, the site was defaced with swastikas and white power insignia. Police at the time declared the vandalism a hate crime.

Cregan said over the years Gittleman helped introduce him to other leaders in the local Jewish community, and helped him understand their concerns about antisemitism.

“We worked together to address their concerns and ensure his congregation could safely worship their faith here in Santa Rosa,” Cregan said.

“I'll certainly miss him in that role, and I'm just thankful really for his friendship and his support,” he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com.