Dear GFC Community,
It is with great pleasure – and more than a little pride – that the URJ Greene Family Camp names Rabbi Andrew Terkel as its Director of Year Round Programs.
Andrew is a long-time GFC camper and staff member. He grew up in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma and at Temple Israel in Tulsa. As a teenager, he was the President of NFTY’s Texas-Oklahoma Region.
After receiving his undergraduate degree at the University of Kansas, Andrew was a fellow with the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life (ISJL). Through the fellowship, he worked with communities across the South big and small, many with limited professional Jewish resources, to ensure that all Jewish children in the Southern region had access to an excellent Jewish education, no matter where they lived.
After completing his fellowship, he went on to study for the rabbinate at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. While at HUC, he was the song leader at the URJ Kutz Camp in NY and served a number of synagogues throughout the Los Angeles area.
Rabbi Terkel comes to us from Congregation Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim in Charleston, South Carolina. He has been the assistant rabbi and has been responsible for their educational and youth programs, along with his other rabbinic responsibilities. During that time he was also the Regional Rabbinic Advisor for NFTY-SAR, the NFTY region in his area.
We are looking forward to welcoming Andrew back to Greene Country, and this time he is bringing his family back with him. His wife Hannah, an incredible Jewish educator in her own right, is an alumna of URJ Olin-Sang-Ruby Camp in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. Their one-year-old son Avi will be a GFC camper in a few short years. The entire family has been going to Camp Coleman ever since they arrived in South Carolina.
Andrew will begin on August 15, 2016 and will work out of our Dallas URJ office. He will be succeeding Rabbi Ana Bonnheim, who will be relocating to North Carolina with her husband, Rabbi Asher Knight. Andrew will work with our full time team to advance our vision for year round programs, as well as support and guide our education team in the summer as our camp rabbi.
Welcome home, Andrew!