WESTHAMPTON BEACH, NEW YORK | Rabbi Marc Schneier celebrated his 36th anniversary as founding senior rabbi of The Hampton Synagogue on Sunday with a Torah dedication attended by Israel’s Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Kalman Ber and his father, Rabbi Arthur Schneier.
The ceremony on Aug. 30 brought together three generations of Jewish religious leadership at the Westhampton Beach congregation founded by Rabbi Marc Schneier in 1990.
Rabbi Arthur Schneier, a child Holocaust survivor from Vienna and longtime senior rabbi of Park East Synagogue in Manhattan, donated the new Torah in honour of his son’s anniversary.
The scroll was dedicated to Rabbi Marc and Simi Schneier and to the memory of Simi Schneier’s parents, Rita and Naftali Teitelbaum, who were also Holocaust survivors.
Chief Rabbi Ber travelled from Israel for less than 24 hours specifically to participate in the dedication, according to information released about the event. He brought a custom-made cover for the Torah.
Chazzan Netanel Hershtik, the cantor of The Hampton Synagogue, performed with the synagogue choir during the program.
“What a night,” Rabbi Marc Schneier said in a public statement.
“I am so honoured to have celebrated my 36th anniversary at The Hampton Synagogue with the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Kalman Ber, and my father, Rabbi Arthur Schneier. There is no place like the Hamptons. Every day, our community makes the ordinary extraordinary.”
The dedication carried special significance in Jewish tradition.
The Torah is the handwritten scroll containing the Five Books of Moses and is read publicly during synagogue services. Producing a scroll requires a trained scribe to write each Hebrew letter by hand, following detailed religious laws.
The commandment to write a Torah scroll is traditionally counted as the 613th and final mitzvah in the Torah. Jewish teaching regards participation in the creation or dedication of a scroll as giving each person a share in the Torah.
A Torah dedication is also frequently compared to a wedding. The completed scroll is welcomed into the synagogue with music, singing, dancing and celebration before being placed in the ark.
The anniversary highlighted the histories of two prominent American rabbis whose careers have combined congregational leadership with international interfaith work.
Rabbi Arthur Schneier was born in Vienna in 1930 and survived the Holocaust in Hungary. He immigrated to the United States after the Second World War and became senior rabbi of Park East Synagogue in 1962.
He founded the Appeal of Conscience Foundation in 1965 to promote religious freedom, tolerance and peaceful conflict resolution. In 2001, former U.S. president Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Citizens Medal for his work advancing interfaith understanding.
Rabbi Marc Schneier founded The Hampton Synagogue in 1990. The congregation says it was established in the spirit of ahavat Yisrael, the love of the Jewish people, faith and heritage.
The synagogue has since developed into a major centre of Jewish religious, cultural and civic life in the Hamptons. Its services and programs have attracted political leaders, diplomats, artists, business figures and members of the wider Jewish community.
Steven Spielberg was among the prominent early supporters who helped the congregation develop.
Rabbi Marc Schneier has also pursued interfaith work through the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, which he co-founded in 1989.
The foundation initially concentrated on strengthening relations between Black and Jewish communities. It later expanded its work to Muslim-Jewish relations and developed partnerships with religious and political leaders across the Middle East.
The Hampton Synagogue describes Schneier as an American rabbinical leader who helped plant the seeds for the Abraham Accords by building relationships between Jewish communities and leaders in Muslim-majority countries.
The 2020 Abraham Accords established formal diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Morocco and Sudan later joined the normalization framework, although Sudan’s agreement has not been fully implemented.
Sunday’s ceremony placed those international achievements within the more intimate setting of family, community and Jewish continuity.
A father who survived the Holocaust donated a Torah to honour his son’s 36 years of rabbinic leadership. The scroll also memorializes another pair of Holocaust survivors.
It will now remain with the congregation as a living part of Jewish prayer, learning and communal life.
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