Bound Brook congregation welcomes new rabbi

CONGREGATION KNESSETH ISRAEL of Bound Brook has welcomed its new religious leader, Rabbi Stephen Wylen.

Wylen will conduct religious services, teach adult education classes, and work with the congregation’s religious school and bar/bat mitzvah students. He led this year’s High Holy Day services along with Cantor Eddie Roffman.

Wylen held the position of rabbi at Temple Beth Tikvah in Wayne for 20 years. He and his wife, Cheryl, have four children and nine grandchildren.

A published author, Wylen’s first book, “Settings of Silver: An Introduction to Judaism,” is a popular college text and is used in many conversion and adult education classes. He also wrote “The Book of the Jewish Year,” a textbook on the Jewish holidays; “The Jews in the Time of Jesus,” which promotes an understanding of the founding years of both Christianity and Judaism; “The Seventy Faces of Torah”; and “Gossip: The Power of the Word.”

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He said he believes that the synagogue is the “central and most necessary institution to transmit the spirit of Judaism,” adding, “I am where God wants me to be.”