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Picking a new rabbi? A new novel about a church shows how
(JTA) — About a decade ago, I served on my synagogue’s rabbinic search committee. Normally I am allergic to any activity at which minutes will be taken, but it was a great experience, thanks to the care and intelligence that my fellow committee members brought to the process. Flush with satisfaction for a job well done and probably a little full of ourselves, we even imagined other synagogues might learn from our example. We spoke about putting together a seminar, or perhaps a how-to book.
No one, I recall, suggested turning the experience into a novel.
That’s why I’m not Michelle Huneven, who this year published a novel about a church’s search for a new minister. I’ve been recommending it to anyone who wants to understand shul politics, or wants reassurance that Jews are just like everybody else, no more and no less.
“Search” is narrated by Dana, a 50-something restaurant critic, former seminarian and once-active congregant at a Unitarian Universalist church in Arroyo, California, who is recruited to the search committee when the current pastor announces plans to retire. The book tracks the search process from in-house focus groups to Skype interviews with applicants to the finalists’ “candidating week” — what you and I might call “auditions.”
Despite an unlikely premise for a mainstream novel, ”Search” is a smart, funny and enlightening book about contemporary religion, especially of the liberal, undogmatic variety that is typical of Unitarian Universalism and, well, much of non-Orthodox Judaism. It’s a worthy companion to “The New Rabbi,” Stephen Fried’s 2002 nonfiction book about a Philadelphia-area synagogue and its own search.
Huneven captures the impossible nature of a clergy person’s job, and especially the unrealistic expectation of congregations that want their spiritual leader to be all things to all people. Trying to narrow down what they are looking for, members of the search committee call out qualifications:
“‘Sermons with more spiritual depth and intellectual content,’ said Charlotte.
“‘Someone with an efficient, organized management style,’ said Belinda.”
Wonders Dana: “Who didn’t want a warm presence with a progressive social conscience, the management skills of a corporate CEO, and the work-life boundaries of a New Age life coach?”
As the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly warns in its manual for search committees, searches founder “not because of a dearth of qualified candidates but because the congregation’s expectations of rabbinic candidates is unrealistic.”
Regular synagogue-goers will recognize the tensions in the novel between the older members and the newcomers, between boomers and millennials, between theists and humanists. At one point, the assistant minister remembers when a midweek service led by a student intern began attracting a core of people who weren’t showing up on Sundays.
“You can’t have two congregations, no matter how small one is,” she explains. “It sets up a potential schism.”
Clergy searches are fraught because nearly every congregant regards themself as the rabbi’s boss. On the flip side, members grow attached to longtime rabbis, even when they outlast their changing congregations. In “Search,” the senior minister has been with the church for eight years, but remains under the shadow of his beloved predecessor, who had served for 28 years. (I was married by the “new rabbi” at my wife’s family’s synagogue, who at that point had been on the job for about 20 years.)
“Search” isn’t a satire, exactly, but Huneven has fun with the political and social winds that are blowing through liberal denominations. Some of the congregants are set on hiring a woman after almost four decades of male leadership. “But we can’t say that explicitly,” Dana warns. Another character is angling to be the head of the national church association, “though it’s not such a clear shot for straight white guys these days,” says a church consultant.
Unitarian Universalist, or UU, churches are also staunchly secular, which means the clergy don’t have to express a belief in God, let alone Jesus or a strict theology. That brings with it the paradox of choice: “Our ministers can be gay, trans, Buddhist, atheist, any race, or same-sex adoptive parents with mixed-race families. You name it,” says a member of the committee. “That’s the future. Everybody’s in.”
I would guess that a lot of liberal synagogues would love to be as open and diverse as that, but bump up against the reality that, despite a growing number of Jews by choice and Jews of color, synagogues tend to be white, upper-middle-class and heteronormative. As for theology, rare is the synagogue that doesn’t want its rabbi to “have been inspired to serve God,” as the R.A. handbook puts it; on the other hand, search committees disagree about how much theology and “God talk” they want from the bima.
And yet, even the most secular UU church or most liberal synagogue pursues the sacred in the ways they gather, worship, mourn and serve the community. As the squabbles intensify in “Search,” one older member of the committee laments that they’ve lost sight of their goal: how the search for a new clergyperson is a “a sacred task that will grow us spiritually.”
During my time on the search committee, I saw the sausage-making of synagogue life. Compromise is always hard. Even the most thorough, transparent search process is bound to disappoint someone.
And “Search” the novel can be, at times, as tedious as a real-life rabbinic search, as characters deliberate over candidates at painstaking length. But Huneven understands that holiness is not just a matter of reading from a prayer book or studying from a text, but lives in the way people create communities and choose their leaders. It’s a messy process, but if you do it in good faith and in a spirit of humility, you might end up with a pretty great rabbi.
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Syria Tightens Grip After Kurdish Pullback, Says Islamic State Prisoners Escape
Military members gather near Raqqa prison, where the Syrian army is besieging SDF members after the army took control of the city of Raqqa, Syria, Jan. 19, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Hassano
Syrian government troops tightened their grip on Monday across a swathe of northern and eastern territory after it was abruptly abandoned by Kurdish forces in a dramatic shift that has consolidated President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s rule.
A day after the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), once the main US ally in Syria, agreed to quit large areas under a ceasefire, the Syrian army said “a number of” Islamic State terrorists had escaped a prison that had been under SDF control in the eastern city of Shaddadi, accusing the SDF of releasing them.
The SDF said it had lost control of the prison following an attack by government fighters. The Syrian army denied attacking the jail and said its forces would work to secure the prison and re-arrest the escapees.
The SDF said Shaddadi prison had held thousands of militants. The army did not say how many IS detainees had fled.
The SDF withdrawals mark the biggest change in Syria‘s control map since Islamist fighters led by Sharaa toppled President Bashar al-Assad in 2024, tilting the power balance Sharaa’s way after months of deadlock in talks with the SDF over government demands its forces merge fully with Damascus.
After days of fighting with government forces, the SDF agreed on Sunday to withdraw from both Raqqa and Deir al-Zor – two Arab-majority provinces they had controlled for years and the location of Syria‘s main oil fields.
GOVERNMENT TROOPS DEPLOY AT OILFIELD, IN RAQQA
Turkey, which has repeatedly sent forces into northern Syria to curb Kurdish power since 2016, welcomed the deal signed by its ally Sharaa and SDF commander Mazloum Abdi. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan urged the swift implementation of the agreement that requires the full integration of Kurdish fighters into Syria‘s armed forces.
The SDF, spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG militia, had established control of a quarter or more of Syria during the 2011-2024 civil war, whilst fighting with the support of US troops against Islamic State. The United States, which has since established close ties with Sharaa under President Donald Trump, has been closely involved in mediation between the sides.
The SDF media office said in a statement that the prison at Shaddadi – one of three under its control in the Hasakah region – had come under repeated attack by “Damascus factions,” and that dozens of SDF fighters were killed or wounded defending it.
The statement added that the US-led coalition against Islamic State had not intervened despite repeated appeals to a nearby coalition base. The US military’s Central Command did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
In its denial of the SDF account, the Syrian Ministry of Defense said army forces had bypassed Shaddadi, in line with deployment plans, and offered aid to SDF forces inside. The Syrian army announced it had established control over the city of Shaddadi and the prison.
The Syrian Defense Ministry also denied an SDF account of clashes between government and SDF forces near a jail in Raqqa, which the SDF said was holding IS inmates. It said the army had arrived “at the vicinity of al-Aqtan prison … and began securing it and its surroundings despite the presence of SDF forces inside”.
The SDF said nine of its fighters were killed and 20 wounded in clashes around al-Aqtan.
Hasakah province, which largely remains under SDF control, is home to the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli, the main prisons holding Islamic State detainees, and a camp holding thousands of IS-linked prisoners.
GOVERNMENT FORCES DEPLOY
Reuters journalists saw government forces deployed in the city of Raqqa that the SDF had captured from Islamic State in 2017, and at oil and gas facilities in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor – both areas the Kurdish forces had held for years.
It follows the withdrawal of Kurdish forces from districts of Aleppo city they had controlled for years after fighting there earlier this month.
The 14-point deal published by Syria‘s presidency showed Abdi’s signature alongside Sharaa’s.
It stipulates that the prisons, along with all border crossings and oil and gas fields, would be handed to government control – steps the SDF had long resisted.
The timing of the handover of the prisons and camps was not announced.
Abdi, the SDF commander, confirmed on Sunday that the SDF had agreed to withdraw from Deir al-Zor and Raqqa provinces.
Abdi said he is set to meet Sharaa in Damascus on Monday and would share the details of the agreement with the public after his return to SDF-held territory, Kurdish media reported.
The deal says that all SDF forces will be merged into the defense and interior ministries as “individuals” and not as units, as the SDF had sought.
It commits the SDF to expel all non-Syrian figures affiliated to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish militant group which fought a decades-long insurgency in Turkey.
Senior figures from Erdogan’s ruling AK Party said this removed a major obstacle to Turkey’s peace process with PKK militants.
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Israeli Government Sends 2026 Budget to Parliament, Approval at Risk From Rifts
A drone view of Jerusalem with the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg
Israel’s Finance Ministry said on Monday it delivered the 2026 state budget draft to parliament ahead of a preliminary vote on Wednesday, though the plan’s prospects are clouded by political fractures that have strained the ruling coalition.
Delayed by political infighting, the cabinet last month approved the spending plan for this year after defense outlays were raised to 112 billion shekels ($35.45 billion) from an initial 90 billion.
The budget, as well as an accompanying economic plan, faces an uphill battle for approval as the government has become increasingly polarized. By law it must be approved by the end of March or an election would be triggered.
If approved on Wednesday, the budget will head to parliament‘s finance committee where it could undergo changes before its final two votes in the plenum.
For more than two years parties in the ruling coalition have splintered over the war in Gaza, the ceasefire that has halted it, and demands by ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties to exempt Jewish seminary students from mandatory military service.
In all, state spending would be 662 billion shekels excluding debt servicing. The deficit ceiling was set at 3.9% of gross domestic product, a level the Bank of Israel deems as too high since it does not allow for a reduction in the debt burden.
The budget deficit slipped to 4.7% of GDP in 2025 from 6.8% in 2023. A spike in defense costs due to the Gaza war pushed the deficit higher the past two years.
While the ceasefire has halted most fighting, it has not stopped entirely, and both sides have accused one another of violating the deal’s provisions.
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Iran to Consider Lifting Internet Ban as Brutal Crackdown Quells Protests; State TV Hacked
An Iranian woman walks on a street in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 19, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iran may lift its internet blackout in a few days, a senior parliament member said on Monday, after authorities shut communications while they used massive force to crush protests in the worst domestic unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In the latest sign of weakness in the authorities’ control, state television appeared to be hacked late on Sunday, briefly showing speeches by US President Donald Trump and the exiled son of Iran‘s last shah calling on the public to revolt.
Iran‘s streets have largely been quiet for a week, authorities and social media posts indicated, since anti-government protests that began in late December were put down in three days of mass violence.
An Iranian official told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the confirmed death toll was more than 5,000, including 500 members of the security forces, with some of the worst unrest taking place in ethnic Kurdish areas in the northwest. Western-based Iranian rights groups also say thousands were killed.
ARRESTS REPORTED TO BE CONTINUING
US-based Iranian Kurdish rights group HRANA reported on Monday that a significant number of injuries to protesters came from pellet fire to the face and chest that led to blindings, internal bleeding, and organ injuries.
State television reported arrests continuing across Iran on Sunday, including Tehran, Kerman in the south, and Semnan just east of the capital. It said those detained included agents of what it called Israeli terrorist groups.
Opponents accuse the authorities of opening fire on peaceful demonstrators to crush dissent. Iran‘s clerical rulers say armed crowds encouraged by foreign enemies attacked hospitals and mosques.
The death tolls dwarf those of previous bouts of anti-government unrest put down by the authorities in 2022 and 2009. The violence drew repeated threats from Trump to intervene militarily, although he has backed off since the large-scale killing stopped.
Trump’s warnings raised fears among Gulf Arab states of a wider escalation, and they conducted intense diplomacy with Washington and Tehran. Iran‘s ambassador to Saudi Arabia Alireza Enayati said on Monday that “igniting any conflict will have consequences for the entire region.”
INTERNET TO RETURN WHEN ‘CONDITIONS ARE APPROPRIATE’
Iranian communications including internet and international phone lines were largely stopped in the days leading up to the worst unrest. The blackout has since partially eased, allowing accounts of widespread attacks on protesters to emerge.
The internet monitoring group Netblocks said on Monday that metrics showed national connectivity remained minimal, but that a “filternet” with managed restrictions was allowing some messages through, suggesting authorities were testing a more heavily filtered internet.
Ebrahim Azizi, the head of parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said top security bodies would decide on restoring internet in the coming days, with service resuming “as soon as security conditions are appropriate.”
Another parliament member, hardliner Hamid Rasaei, said authorities should have listened to earlier complaints by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei about “lax cyberspace.”
During Sunday’s apparent hack into state television, screens broadcast a segment lasting several minutes with the on-screen headline “the real news of the Iranian national revolution.”
It included messages from Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of Iran‘s last shah, calling for a revolt to overthrow rule by the Shi’ite Muslim clerics who have run the country since the 1979 revolution that toppled his father.
Pahlavi has emerged as a prominent opposition voice and has said he plans to return to Iran, although it is difficult to assess independently how strong support for him is inside Iran.