The vote is in and we are happy to report that Tifereth Israel members have overwhelmingly voted for Rabbi Mathew Marko to be our next Rabbi. Rabbi Marko and his wife, Marie, are excited to join our community on July 1, 2022. We know you will give them a warm welcome when they arrive.
Thank you to everyone who participated in some way during our rabbinic search process, whether in-person or virtually. Your participation in everything from focus groups to candidate visits has been an invaluable part of the search process and the final selection and vote for a candidate.
It has been an honor to serve our congregation and a joy to see the commitment members have to our synagogue. It has also been a privilege to work with such a dedicated search committee. This search process has brought us all together and strengthened our bonds as a community, and we are grateful for that.
Thank you for helping Tifereth Israel take this important step into our exciting future.
Bram Rubinstein
Isabel Schechter
Rabbinic Search Committee Co-Chairs
A Message from Rabbi Marko
Rabbi Mathew Marko has been serving as Senior Rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel of Greenville, South Carolina for six years. He hails from Brooklyn, New York and survived 20 years in Los Angeles. His career adventures have included acting professionally at the Hippodrome State Theatre in Florida, various theaters in New York City, and The Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles, development and fundraising, teaching students as a much-demanded substitute teacher in LA’s school district, and the proprietor of a fine carpentry and custom furniture shop in Los Angeles. This is all precedent to realizing his calling: Torah, Jewish community, tradition balanced with spiritual modernism, social justice and Israel. Rabbi Matt has also been combining his love of Torah and creativity in teaching nagarut/woodshop at Camp Ramah for the past nine years, as well as custom crafting sacred synagogue furniture in his spare time.
Rabbi Matt holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater Performance from the University of Florida at Gainesville with a minor in Hebrew. He earned his Master of Arts in Rabbinic Literature and rabbinic ordination from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles.
Rabbi Matt’s other interests include scuba diving (certified instructor), sky diving, bicycling, motorcycling, playing music, traveling the world, and being a creative kosher chef of international cuisine (what he dubs “kosher treiff”).
Rabbi Matt owes his success to the support of his best friend and wife Marie. Marie and Matt are absolutely thrilled at the possibility of permanently relocating back to beautiful southern California.