The Shofar joins the membership in mourning the death of Rabbi Myron Fenster, who served as interim rabbi of our congregation from August 2008 to July 2012. Those who knew the rabbi will recall that he served joyously with distinction illumined by a touch of good humor. Rabbi Fenster died Wednesday, Aug. 31, and was interred at the Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, NY, following funeral services in the sanctuary of the Shelter Rock Jewish Center in Roslyn, NY.

Prior to his tenure at Congregation Tifereth Israel, Rabbi Fenster served for 36 years as spiritual leader of the Shelter Rock congregation. During that time, he also served as president of the New York Board of Rabbis, and earlier was the first American rabbi sponsored by the Rabbinical Assembly to serve as a visiting rabbi to an Israeli congregation, the Moriah Congregation in Haifa.

In the Rabbinical Assembly, he had been chairman of the Social Action and Israel Committees, served on the Law Committee that accepted gays to the rabbinate among other watershed decisions, and was editor of the quarterly magazine, Conservative Judaism. He was also co-chairman with Bishop John McGann of the Education Committee of the Long Island Holocaust Commission. A writer of note, Rabbi Fenster was widely published in Newsday, The Jerusalem Post, and Hadassah Magazine. His personal story, Up From the Straits: A Memoir, was published in 2011.