Rabbi Herbert Bronstein is being remembered as a scholar, his devotion to his congregation and his advocacy for many social justice initiatives.
Bronstein, the senior rabbi at Glencoe’s North Shore Congregation Israel from 1972 through 1997, died Dec. 30 of natural causes at his Evanston home, according to his son, Rabbi Daniel Bronstein. He was 93.
“He comforted a lot of people and I think he inspired a lot of people,” Bronstein said of his father. “One piece of the inspiration was pure hope. For many Jewish people who were never connected to the Jewish community, he brought them in not via coercion, but via example. He was just open to people.”
Born and raised in Cincinnati, Bronstein learned about many ways to practice Judaism from his father.
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“My dad was exposed to a real spectrum of Judaism,” Bronstein noted. “Everything from the Reform Judaism of the time to Orthodoxy. That was really influential and powerful.”
Remaining at home for his higher education, Bronstein received both an undergraduate and a master’s degree in European history from the University of Cincinnati. Upon deciding to pursue a career as a rabbi, Bronstein continued to live in Cincinnati as he was ordained at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
In 1957, Bronstein was hired as the assistant rabbi at Temple B’rith Kodesh in Rochester, NY. He soon became active in local civic efforts including being a board member on the city’s Metropolitan Housing Committee and its Police Advisory Board, which investigated police interactions with Black residents.
He also participated in the 1963 March on Washington, adding another dimension to his interest in racial equality, according to his son.
“He had this very abiding deep belief for what we would now call racial justice,” Bronstein said. “To him, racism was just disgusting and immoral and he was brought up that way.”
After 15 years in Rochester, Bronstein sought the challenge of becoming a senior rabbi at a congregation and applied at NSCI, leading to his hiring in 1972. Soon the Bronstein family settled into a home on Sheridan Road in Glencoe.
“They felt Chicago was the best fit and they really liked the people here,” Bronstein said.
He delivered some changes to NSCI including a heightened spirituality for the large Reform congregation.
“They wanted a certain depth and emotion and my dad was very much coming from that place as well,” Bronstein added.
Former NSCI President Judy Geleerd Kitzes recalled Bronstein’s dedication to the NSCI membership.
“The congregation came first and that was it,” she said. “He was a rabbi for everybody.”
Bronstein was gaining prominence within the Reform movement and was selected to edit the movement’s Haggadah, the text read on the first two nights at Passover Seders. While a massive task, Bronstein viewed the project as an opportunity to go back and study traditional texts, his son recollected.
“It was a chance to positively impact American Jewry as a whole by editing a version of the Haggadah that was accessible to people who weren’t fluent in Hebrew but was very much grounded in tradition,” Bronstein said. “That was mostly in terms of the way the Haggadah was structured and the readings were included.”
The updated Haggadah proved very popular and has now sold over one million copies and translated into many languages, according to NSCI.
Within NSCI, Bronstein was interested in working with the congregation’s children and teenagers. He developed a weekend retreat known as Karav where the students themselves would plan the contents of the weekend’s activities months in advance.
“Many Jewish leaders speak about the youth and speak about the next generation,” noted Rabbi Stephen Hart, who was initially hired at NSCI as the congregation’s youth director. “He really translated that into real genuine connections.”
Owing to his interest in education, Bronstein taught at several local universities and colleges including Northwestern University, Oakton Community College and Lake Forest College.
“He was just a remarkable teacher,” Hart added. “Whenever people studied with him they were very moved, they were very uplifted by just being in his presence.”
Among the students Bronstein worked with was author Rich Cohen, who studied under Bronstein for his bar mitzvah. The two remained in touch even after Cohen moved to the East Coast with Bronstein flying to New York City to officiate Cohen’s wedding.
“He was an incredibly kind, wise person,” Cohen remembered. “He was one of the people that was keeping the world turning on its axis. Knowing he was there made me feel everything was OK.”
Outside of NSCI, Bronstein took on series of roles in the Jewish community including the chairman of the Central Conference of American Rabbi’s Liturgy Committee, chairman of the Joint Commission on Worship of American Reform Judaism and president of the Chicago Board of Rabbis.
He combined that work with social justice initiatives including gun control, environmental concerns and seeking to foster dialogue between Muslims and Jews as he served on the boards of the Chicago Council of Religious Leaders and the Parliament of World Religions.
“He always believed in hope and optimism,” Bronstein said. “The situation can be really bad and we can be really angry but you can’t stop working on it and you can’t give up hope.”
Family, friends and colleagues also described Bronstein as a scholar as he engaged in graduate study in History of Religions at Oxford University.
“When you are a rabbi you are trying to juggle many things,” Bronstein’s son explained. “You constantly need to be available when congregants need you. Yet nonetheless he was incredibly devoted to studying, writing and teaching and he was very successful in being able to do all of these things. He was supported in his scholarship by the congregation as people understood the significance of academic pursuits in a rabbi’s life.”
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Bronstein retired as NSCI senior rabbi in 1997, but remained affiliated with the congregation as its senior scholar through 2023. He continued as a part-time lecturer on world religions at Lake Forest College until 2012.
In 2019, Bronstein was enshrined in the inaugural class of the Glencoe Hall of Fame by the Glencoe Historical Society.
Away from work, Bronstein loved skiing, Shakespeare and was a music lover particularly drawn to works of composers Johann Sebastian Bach and Gustav Mahler, his son recalled.
In 2012, he and his wife of 62 years, Tamar, moved to Evanston. She died in 2016.
Survivors include three children, Daniel, a Brooklyn resident, Rabbi Deborah Ruth Bronstein of Boulder, CO, and another daughter Miriam of Brookline, MA in addition to two grandchildren.
Services have been held.