Richard Laskey

Temple Sinai is my Sinai because, like the original Sinai, it is for me a place of revelation, reconnection, rumination, and rejoicing. Though I am the great-grandson of an Orthodox rabbi, I was raised on Long Island in the Reform tradition and am comfortable with the traditions and tenets of progressive Judaism.

I first became personally involved in temple life when I began attending the Saturday morning Minyan (Torah study) shortly after my younger son became a Bar Mitzvah. I suppose I could say that I have attended the minyan religiously since 1993!

Because someone asked me personally, I became involved in social action, working as a Mitzvah Day captain at the first annual Mitzvah Day and a couple of years later, with Amy Kula, becoming the Mitzvah Day leaders. We did that for more than five years.

I “represented” the Minyan on the Assistant Rabbi (ARab) search committee in 2000 and, shortly thereafter, was elected to the Board of Trustees. I served as Temple President from 2007-09.
Now, as a retiree, I devote a substantial number of hours to representing Temple Sinai on the “Strategy Committee” of Long Island CAN (Congregations, Associations & Neighborhoods), a faith-based community organizing affiliate of Industrial Areas Foundation.

I am an active member of the Steering Committee of Reform Jewish Voice of New York, the statewide lobbying arm of the Reform movement. I utilize my significant lobbying experience as a representative of the New York State District Attorney’s Association during my thirty-plus years as a state prosecutor.

I also find the time to assist my wife, Abbie, a retired middle school English teacher, who teaches a ten-week course on Holocaust & Jewish Resistance to Temple Sinai’s sixth graders and their parents.

I enjoy exploring our world, in general - and the Jewish world, in particular - through travel, hiking, and reading.