Congregation Beth Torah has announced that Rabbi Craig Lewis will become the congregation’s new rabbi. Rabbi Lewis will return to his hometown to begin his new role on July 1.
“We are thrilled to welcome Rabbi Lewis to Beth Torah,” said Zachary Zwibelman, board co-president of Beth Torah. “Our congregation voted unanimously to approve his appointment, reflecting the excitement across our community. After the tremendous volunteer effort that went into this search, we all feel the wait was well worth it to find Rabbi Lewis.”
“We aren’t only welcoming Rabbi Lewis to Overland Park; we are welcoming him home to the city he grew up in and the synagogue where he was confirmed,” said Mickey Bowen, board co-president of Beth Torah. “He is the perfect addition to our community, invested in both our legacy and the new chapter of our congregation”
Rabbi Lewis will be relocating from Tennessee, where he is currently the rabbi at Mizpah Congregation, a Reform synagogue in Chattanooga. He has spent the last eight years there, cultivating a broad group of lay leaders, expanding social action offerings and regularly speaking at the invitation of schools and churches in the community.
Prior to Tennessee, Rabbi Lewis spent time at congregations in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Irvine, California.
Rabbi Lewis received his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a concentration in French language at the University of Kansas. He earned his Master of Management degree at L’École Supérieure de Commerce in Clermont-Ferrand, France. His M.A. in Hebrew Letters from Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem and Cincinnati, Ohio, was earned in 2007, and he was ordained as a rabbi in May 2008.
“I am thrilled to be returning to Kansas City, where my family has deep roots and where the Jewish community shaped my identity,” Rabbi Lewis said. “And to be at Beth Torah where, as a teen, I held my first positions in Jewish leadership, and where I learned how Judaism inspires actions of social justice, is a homecoming that until recently, I had not dreamed possible. I look forward to a bright future for the congregation in a first-class city with an amazing Jewish community.”
Rabbi Lewis’s wife, Jennifer, is currently the executive director of the Association for Visual Arts in Chattanooga and has vast experience in Jewish communal work. Their son, Eden, is graduating high school in the spring and plans to study theater.
Rabbi Lewis is the brother of Jewish Federation of Kansas City President and CEO Jay Lewis and the son of Stuart and Hilary (z”l) Lewis.
“I am so excited for Beth Torah and the Kansas City Jewish community to add a rabbi of his caliber,” Jay Lewis said about his brother’s return. “Personally, I am so happy to have Craig and his family here, since we haven’t lived in the same city together in over 25 years. To have me in this role at the Federation and Craig stepping into this role at Beth Torah is just incredible and would have made our mom very, very proud.”