Meet Rabbi Nicolas Behrmann

Rabbi Nicolas Behrmann began leading services at Congregation Beit Tikva in December, 2005, sharing the service schedule with Rabbi Leonard Helman.

Here is a Q. and A. with Rabbi Behrmann:

Q. Tell us a little about your background. Where did you grow up?
A. I was born in Los Angeles, but my parents, Paul and Rella Behrmann, were long-time Philadelphians. We moved back to Philadelphia when I was 7 and my sister Tucky was 12.

Q. Tucky? That’s an interesting name.
A. Her name was actually Joyce Tucker, but she was always called Tucky. She was named for the entertainer Sophie Tucker, who was a client of my Dad’s. He was in the insurance business. Tucky passed away several years ago.

Q. Tell us about your schooling.
A. I went to Akiba Hebrew Academy and to Temple University in Philadelphia. From there I entered Hebrew Union seminary in Cincinnati, to become a Reform rabbi. I took a year off to be a student chaplain at Antioch University, and was graduated in 1971.

Q. Could you share with us your motivations for wanting to become a Reform rabbi?
A. The answer is two-fold – my desire to serve the Jewish Community and the specific decision to become a Reform rabbi. Becoming a rabbi was motivated by a desire to study our Jewish heritage and share the knowledge with others. My choice of Reform was due to the openness to tradition while not being locked into the current boundaries of other approaches, especially in the area of outreach to the non-Jewish community and to couples of mixed background.

Q. What was your first rabbinical position?
A. I was an assistant rabbi at a large urban temple, Temple Israel in Miami, Fla. Rabbi Joseph Narot was the senior rabbi, and he performed our wedding in December, 1972.

Q. How did you and Joan meet?
A. It was completely by chance. She was teaching journalism classes at Miami Dade Community College. She attended an event at Temple Israel, I invited her out for coffee afterward—and we were married a year later. That was almost 35 years ago!

Q. Did you stay in Miami?
A. No, I took a position as Director of Religious Education at Temple Beth Am in Framingham, Mass. We lived in Framingham for about seven years—a pretty town and a good place for young families.

Q. You’ve moved about the U.S. a lot. How did that happen?
A. Some of our moves were for my work; as Joan moved up in the newspaper business, many of the moves were initiated by the Gannett Co. For example, we lived for several years in the Washington, D.C., area because Joan was one of the start-up editors at USA Today. That’s when I started to become involved with the computer industry.

Q. Rabbi to computer guru—how did that happen?
A. This transition was both intellectual and practical. I had a strong curiosity about how computers worked and used to be in awe of the young professionals I worked with in congregation and communal work that would talk about computers before and during meetings. As Joan worked her way up the corporate journalism ladder, it became easier to re-invent myself in new communities in the computer field. Fortunately, most of the time I was able to work part-time as a rabbi along with full time work in information technology. Here in Santa Fe, I am enjoying the best of both worlds.

Q. How many places have you lived?
A. It’s a long list. Born in Los Angeles, grew up in Philadelphia, schooling there and in Cincinnati. Then Miami, Framingham, Mass., Glens Fall, N.Y., Nyack, N.Y., Washington, D.C., briefly in Los Angeles, then Palm Springs, Ca., Grosse Pointe, Mi., and now Santa Fe.

Q. What did you do in Grosse Pointe?
A. I worked at General Motors, managing their global e-mail. Joan was arts and entertainment editor of the Detroit News. There was a Jewish community in our area, incorporated as the Grosse Pointe Jewish Council, which met at a United Church in Grosse Pointe. I served as their rabbi for eight years, performing about four services a year plus lectures and of course, the High Holidays, weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs.

Q. And then you moved to Santa Fe. How did that happen?
A. We began visiting Santa Fe when we lived in Los Angeles in the mid-‘80s, and we continued to come here for brief vacations when we lived in Palm Springs. Initially the big draw was the Santa Fe Opera. We found that in the middle weekend of every summer they performed a world premiere of an opera, and we loved going to that.
Three summers ago, we drove across country from Grosse Pointe to meet our daughter and her family in San Diego for the July 4 weekend. We stopped for a couple of nights in Santa Fe.
Here’s exactly what happened. We met some old friends for dinner at the Coyote Café. After dinner, we walked out onto Water St. in the midst of one of those great Santa Fe sunsets-- pink, purple, yellow. I said to Joan, “I think I could live here.”

Q. And you did?
A. It wasn’t as simple as that---but almost. We came back that Christmas of 2003 and bought a casita that was just being completed in the South Capital, to use as a vacation home. We were on vacation at the casita in July of ’04 when I saw an ad for a Project Manager for the State of New Mexico. It was exactly what my training was all about. I applied for it, had an interview and went back to Detroit.
In October they called and said, “How soon can you start?” I moved here and started working on Nov. 1, 2004. Joan stayed behind to sell our house; she got here in May, 2005. We sold the casita and moved into our present home in July, 2005.

Q. You mentioned a daughter. Any other children?
A. Our daughter, Laura Kastigar, lives in Lafayette, Ca. and we have two grandchildren, Ryan and Rachel. They’ve visited us several times and we expect them again this summer. Our son, Dan Jinks, is a movie and TV producer and lives in Los Angeles.

Q. Do you have any hobbies?
A. I’m interested in photography and am learning the intricacies of a digital camera. Joan and I love to travel – Israel, Egypt, Japan, Thailand, white-water rafting on the Grand Canyon. Our last trip was to the Antarctic, in January 2007.