{"id":256936,"date":"2026-08-01T04:31:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T04:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/256936\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T04:31:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T04:31:15","slug":"rabbi-michael-perice-returns-to-philly-area-to-work-at-kesher-israel-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/256936\/","title":{"rendered":"Rabbi Michael Perice Returns to Philly Area to Work at Kesher Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Rabbi Michael Perice (Photo credit: Rich Lewis)<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a Jewish Philadelphian, you\u2019ve probably heard of Rabbi Michael Perice.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a son on his mother\u2019s side of the Goldsteins\u2019 Rosenberg\u2019s Funeral Directors family, which has locations in Philadelphia, Bucks County, Ambler, Conshohocken and South Jersey.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s the former opioid addict who shared his story to Philadelphia Jewish Exponent<\/a>, the Philadelphia Inquirer<\/a> and other media outlets, going viral in the region and in the Jewish world.<\/p>\n

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, he\u2019s the 2020 graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote who went on to lead Temple Sinai of Cinnaminson for 4 1\/2 years.<\/p>\n

But in the summer of 2024, Perice left the Philadelphia area for Los Angeles to serve as the senior rabbi at Beit T\u2019Shuvah, a synagogue that doubles as an addiction recovery community and treatment center.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a person in long-term recovery, I have been inspired by the mission and lifesaving work of Beit T\u2019Shuvah for many years,\u201d Perice told the Beverly Press<\/a>, a local newspaper serving Beverly Hills, West Hollywood and other areas within the LA region. \u201cBeing its next rabbi is not only an honor but the culmination of a spiritual, personal and professional journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two years later, however, Perice is back. He has signed on to become the rabbi at Historic Congregation Kesher Israel in Philadelphia\u2019s Society Hill neighborhood. The 40-year-old starts on Sept. 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made the decision as a family that LA was not the place we wanted to be. There is really no place like home,\u201d said the rabbi, who has a young son.<\/p>\n

\"\"Rabbi Michael Perice at Historic Congregation Kesher Israel (Photo credit: Rich Lewis)<\/p>\n

Perice has actually been back for 11 months. Over the past year, he has officiated at more than 100 Jewish funerals in the area through his family\u2019s company. He knows a lot of people in Jewish Philadelphia, and he can\u2019t replicate that out West.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I think about the career I want, this is where I can do the most good,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A board member at Kesher Israel attended one of the funerals and contacted Norman Millan, Kesher Israel\u2019s executive director, about Perice. Millan then reached out to the young rabbi.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018There\u2019s a million things I could do, but I\u2019m looking for the right job.\u2019 He said, \u2018If you want to come and meet, we have a lot going on here. I think you might like what we have.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Millan said the synagogue needed a younger leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have dedicated congregants, but we\u2019re all getting older, me included, and we knew we had to handle the monumental task of bringing the next generation into our building,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\"\"Rabbi Michael Perice outside Historic Congregation Kesher Israel (Photo credit: Rich Lewis)<\/p>\n

Kesher Israel only has 127 member families, but as Millan told Perice, he is not merely presiding over decline.<\/p>\n

The synagogue has a preschool with over 60 students<\/a>, about half of whom are not Jewish. The school is known in the community for its Reggio Emilia approach to education, which puts independent play at the center of the curriculum.<\/p>\n

The school also emphasizes Jewish traditions and values and comes with a free synagogue membership.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe value their rights, their opinions, their ability to do things,\u201d said Dawn Klemash, the director of the program, to Philadelphia Jewish Exponent in 2023. \u201cWe try to have a program that allows kids to be independent, and an active participant in their community.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the preschool, 35-40 members attend a weekly Saturday Shabbat service and brunch.<\/p>\n

There are good bones here. It\u2019s now Perice\u2019s job to go out and find the next generation.<\/p>\n

When he talked to Millan, he was excited by the challenge of trying to bring them in and help revive a congregation that has been around since the 19th century.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s this very historic congregation: one of the oldest Ashkenazic congregations in the country. Like many older congregations, it hasn\u2019t seen its heyday in a long time. Can you bring vibrancy back to this historic and tradition-based place?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you walk around this part of Philadelphia, it\u2019s all young families in their 20s and 30s,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Millan said he wanted to hire Perice in part because of the younger man\u2019s charisma and energy. The rabbi believes that he needs to take that charisma and energy outside of the synagogue walls.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t just be a rabbi sitting in an office expecting people to come to us. I have to be out in the world, doing lifecycles, doing programs, meeting people where they are. I think a lot of this is done through personal connection,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Perice also wants to connect with other Jewish organizations and communities in the area.<\/p>\n

His wife, Rachael Perice, is now the senior director for strategy and development at Tribe 12, the nonprofit organization that connects Jews in their 20s and 30s to Jewish life.<\/p>\n

Tribe 12 does matchmaking for young people on the High Holidays.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey realized Kesher Israel wasn\u2019t on the list. We got on the list. It\u2019s those types of things,\u201d Perice said.<\/p>\n

Perice also plans to establish a synagogue presence on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, the synagogue has no social media. I\u2019m very much going to be pushing our social media so the wider public can see it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The rabbi lives in South Jersey, and his son goes to school at the Katz JCC in Cherry Hill.
He\u2019s happy to be home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels good on multiple levels. It feels like a homecoming. It\u2019s good for my family. You don\u2019t realize how important it is until it\u2019s not there. Watching my parents be able to be with my son every day, that was really missing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everybody dreams of moving on and going to the big city and accomplishing something great, but what I\u2019ve found is that the greatness I\u2019ve found in my life, it happened in this city,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n

jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rabbi Michael Perice (Photo credit: Rich Lewis) If you\u2019re a Jewish Philadelphian, you\u2019ve probably heard of Rabbi Michael…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[182,139,69,71,70,61868],"class_list":["post-256936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-synagogue-spotlight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}