My City December 2022

MYSTORY

In addition to preparing sermons and organizing services, she has a long list of other responsibilities when it comes to overseeing a synagogue with roughly 140 families, a preschool and youth and adult education. McCoon, who excels in the teaching portion of her job, plays a role in all of Temple Beth El’s education services, working with people of all ages. She has also been part of a panel discus sion of Bay-area professionals on reproductive rights and mod erated a panel discussion about Jewish end-of-life planning.

“Zoe is a warm and friendly person, making everyone feel welcome and comfortable in her congregational home,” she says. “Knowing that music makes people happy and brings them together as well as enhancing a prayer service, she incor porates it very well in her Sabbath services. Her sermons are very relevant.” McCoon’s youth makes her a rarity among Rabbis. Ac cording to the career website Zippia.com, only four percent of American Rabbis are under 30 years of age and just 27% are women.That means only a small fraction of Rabbis in the United States are women in their 20s. “My wife Kay and I both knew when Zoe was a very young girl that she was going to become a Rabbi. We watched her observe, learn, lead, teach and sing unlike any of her peers.” Micheal Melet, Lifelong Member - Temple Beth El, Flint That McCoon is among them, however, is no surprise to many who witnessed her growth as she came of age at Flint’s Temple Beth El, like 82-year-old Micheal Melet, a lifelong member. “My wife Kay and I both knew when Zoe was a very young girl that she was going to become a Rabbi,” he says. “We watched her observe, learn, lead, teach and sing unlike any of her peers. She was a born teacher and grasped and shared her Jewish knowledge at such an early age. She led our congregation in Shabbat services and read beautifully from our Torahs with a deep understanding and ability to articulate her thoughts.”

McCoon has conceptualized and led presentations with titles like “Powerful Jewish Women in History” and “Each of Us is Made in the Image of God.” “A regular week does not exist for me because there are so many moving pieces to a Rabbi’s job,” she says. “I spend a good amount of time meeting individually with members and having meaningful conversations with our leaders about what we can accomplish together and what our role as a temple is with regard to what is going on in the world. Really, building relationships is at the core of everything we do.” As search committee members expected, McCoon has prov en a more-than-capable successor to experienced and accom plished Rabbi Avi Schulman, who was ordained in 1984 and had led Beth Torah since 2007. “Rabbi Zoe is doing a wonderful job and it is not easy for a newly-ordained Rabbi to join a congregation that has had a well-loved Rabbi for a long time,” Ronnie Petersohn says. “She stepped into her role with an ease that would be difficult for even a more experienced Rabbi.” Perhaps no one is more thrilled to see McCoon thriving as a Rabbi than her mother, Carol Raznik, who has a deep knowl edge of Judaism and publicly reads fromThe Torah (Hebrew bible) in both English and Hebrew.

44

MYCITYMAG.COM