Annual Rabbi Shacknai Lecture

Remembering Rabbi Shai Shacknai

Rabbi Shai Shacknai came to Temple Beth Tikvah in 1960 as its first full-time Rabbi. This was his first and only pulpit.

Born in Jerusalem, he grew up in a deeply committed Zionist family and was nurtured with a passionate love for the Jewish People and the land of Israel. Rabbi Shacknai came to see his role as a human being and as a Jew through the prism of a living faith. His life was marked by deep devotion to Judaism, to his community and to humanity.

In the course of nine years of consecrated service, Rabbi Shacknai established himself as a leader in the Jewish community of North Jersey and in the Wayne community. A driving force behind the growth of this Congregation, he molded a community of diverse backgrounds and traditions into a vital and responsive kehilla. To his congregants, Rabbi Shacknai was teacher, wise mentor, counselor and a leader of a broad spectrum of humanitarian and communal endeavors. His high intelligence was combined with a warm and loving personality. With his infectious sense of humor and incisive wit, Rabbi Shacknai communicated a powerful life force.

As his name means gift, Shai Shacknai was an authentic man whose very being was a gift to all who knew and loved him. To the many people whose lives he touched, his death at the age of 38 came to be felt as a deep personal loss.

The Annual Lecture, as a living memorial to Rabbi Shai Shacknai, was begun in 1971 at the suggestion of Rabbi Shacknai’s successor, Rabbi Israel Dresner, in collaboration with Rabbi Shacknai’s widow, Shirley Shacknai Freedman.

Each year, around the time of Rabbi Shacknai’s yahrzeit, Temple Beth Tikvah brings a Jewish scholar, artist or leader to Wayne to provide a learning experience for the members of the congregation and the community that he knew and loved.