Rabbi Art Gould

"The Door is Always Open. I Came Here for the People."

by Tina Arnopole Driskill

"It is a privilege and an honor to be the rabbi here," says newly hired Rabbi Art Gould.  "The people, as a community and individually, are friendly to the point of being cuddly."

Rabbi Gould, 57, was born in Chicago in 1950 and reared in Skokie, Illinois; he was brought up in one of the original Reconstructionist synagogues, and because of his diverse introduction to Judaism, he considers himself a "Post denominationalist."  He doesn't pigeonhole himself into any one sect of Judaism, and is of the belief "we should all be one Jewish family."

As a child, his community was closely aligned with the United Synagogue Conservative Movement, and he was very active at Camp Ramah and with United Synagogue Youth.

It was through his involvement with local Hillels that he met his wife of 34 years, Carol Robinson, 55, a safety, health and environment consultant who works for Genentech in South San Francisco. They officially met for the first time at a Hillel summer institute at Starlight, Pennsylvania, but he fondly reminisces that she first saw and became attracted to him, as the song goes, "across a crowded room." Rabbi Gould earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy at the University of Illinois, and "for lack of anything better to do," he started law school. After one semester he decided to become a rabbi. It was his intention to become a Hillel rabbi; inspired in part by the many rabbis he met through his involvement with college Hillel.

The seed for becoming a rabbi actually was planted earlier during his senior year in high school, when he served as the marching band drum major. During his first three years with the band, he relates observing the band director's tendency to shout out what started off to be correct directions, which invariably ended with faulty directions. Ultimately, the drum majors were yelled at for merely carrying out what they had been told to do.

Rabbi Gould learned to listen to the first directions, ignore the last, and lead the band to do what he felt the director really had intended. This ability to listen and observe prompted the director to tell him, "I should have made you drum major last year. You should become a rabbi, because you can listen carefully."

Following his ordination in 1978 from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he earned a Masters in Hebrew Literature, he served two years as an assistant rabbi in Toledo, Ohio and spent two more years as a pulpit rabbi in Elgin, Illinois.

He determined after these first four years that he was not emotionally ready to minister as a pulpit rabbi, and decided to emulate Talmudic rabbis who served as an avocation, while earning their living as professionals or tradesmen. Consequently, Rabbi Gould joins us following a 25-year career in the high-tech industry of computer marketing, programming and data processing. After accepting a position in the early 1990s as a pre-sales engineer for a Silicon Valley software company, he and Carol relocated their family to their Alameda home in 1997.

About five years ago, he and Carol took a day out of their busy schedules for what he describes in business vernacular as an "offsite" to discuss the next stage of their lives. One of the high points on his list was to find communities where he could be more active in rabbinical work.

Believing he had "lived enough life" and had "a much better understanding of what's important to people in a synagogue and as a rabbi," he came to the conclusion that, G-d had something else in mind for me."

Always active in whatever community he lived, he moved his involvement up a notch, taking on a Rosh Hashanah pulpit in Antioch, a one year visiting rabbi position in Visalia and many opportunities to "pinch hit" for Rabbi Bloom at his home community, Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland.

It was Rabbi Bloom, his inspiration and mentor, who advised him to take this pulpit after pointing out to him that he identifies as a rabbi and that he has unfinished business from his earlier career as a rabbi.

"From my standpoint, I needed a community to serve and this community needed a rabbi. In terms of the diversity in my background and the diversity here, this seems a good fit." From a geographical perspective, he and Carol feel they can remain in their Alameda home from which they can both commute without great hardship. They will maintain two residences, the family home in Alameda and a rented home here in Modesto during Shabbat, religious school and holiday schedules.

He is learning about the community and says, "I came here to serve." He sees the rabbi's role as that of "Any Jew -- to do mitzvot, study and learn together." Specifically, he hopes to "pitch in -- teach, learn, celebrate, commiserate, be a good example, a good Jew, be warm, welcoming, hamish."

He hopes to facilitate mitzvah projects within the Jewish community and in Modesto at large, and he feels, as good Jews, it is essential to reach out to our Muslim neighbors and all religious/social justice communities.

He is a self-admitted "sports and politics junkie," and actively pursues interests in both. Besides his role as drum major with his school band, he lettered in tennis, played the Chicago style "real man's" game of slow pitch baseball (which uses a very large -- 6" -- ball pitched slowly in a high arc), and dominated the basketball court at the park across the street from his house. He even tried out for high school basketball, but quickly found the guys on that team were not the 5' Jewish boys he dominated at the park. He also adds ping-pong to his sports interests marathon and has been overheard discussing the merits of Modesto area golf courses and tennis courts.

For the last two years he has been participating in a one-day 75-mile charity bicycle ride to raise funds for Muscular Sclerosis research with a Bay Area group called the Mitzvah Milers. He was motivated to do this ride because Rabbi Perlmutter, the senior rabbi at this first pulpit, died from the disease three years following diagnosis. He is hoping to do a 5-day ride next fall in Israel as a fundraiser for Alyn Hospital, a pediatric and adolescent rehabilitation center that treats many victims of terrorism.

He invites religious school students to join him for "Sports with the Rabbi" on Thursdays between 3:30 and 4 p.m. When asked to talk about himself, he is quick to kvell over his wife and daughters first. He proudly explains that in only three years Carol earned a Bachelors of Science in Chemistry from Northwestern in Chicago, while managing the Hillel kosher kitchen. She went on to earn a Masters in Industrial Hygiene at the University of Michigan.

Eldest daughter, Michalle, 32, is a novelist, screen play writer and has published some two dozen poems. She earned a BA in English from the University of Illinois, and an MFA from the University of Texas in Austin, where she attended as a Michener Fellow. She is currently an adjunct faculty member at St. Edwards University.

Miriam, 30 in January, is in the process of earning a doctorate in cultural anthropology. She received a BA in English from Brandeis University and an MA in folklore from the University of North Carolina.

When asked how he feels about taking the position as rabbi of CBS, he says, "I totally feel I've made the right decision." And we at CBS are totally happy he is willing to make a mid-life reset, do a reverse commute, and make our congregation his "chosen people."

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