Change can be challenging, and Lawrence’s Jewish community is facing a lot of it.

The three staff members of KU Hillel Kansas University’s only organization serving the school’s 1,500 Jewish students will be leaving their positions in the next few months.

Lawrence is losing three Jewish leaders who serve the Kansas University community. KU Hillel leaders who are leaving town for new opportunities are, from left, Lisa Raschke, assistant director, Susan Shafer-Landau, executive director, and Andrew Zidel, Jewish Campus Service Corps fellow. They're shown earlier this week at Hillel House, 940 Miss.

And Rabbi Judith Beiner, spiritual leader of the Lawrence Jewish Community Center, 917 Highland Drive, will finish her part-time duties in May in preparation for her family’s move to Atlanta.

So in a short period of time, the city’s Jews will lose all the Jewish professionals who serve their communal needs. Despite the impending loss, those leaving their positions behind are philosophical about the situation.

“There’s nothing connected about why everybody’s leaving,” said Beiner, who has served the Jewish center here for more than four years. “We live in a very transitional society, where people go places for different reasons or better opportunities. In two-career families, you often go where your spouse goes.”

That is the case with Beiner, whose husband, Stan, will become headmaster of Solomon Schechter Day School in Atlanta. Judith Beiner will take six months off to help her family relocate.

Keep momentum going

The loss of four Jewish professionals at once is daunting, said Susan Shafer-Landau, KU Hillel’s executive director, but the community will survive it.

“It does raise some concerns, but it also raises the opportunity for new energy and ideas,” she said. “I’m very optimistic about the state of Lawrence’s Jewish community. It’ll take a hit, but it’s very much set for growth.”

Shafer-Landau is leaving her position June 30 to move with her family to Madison, Wis., where her husband, Russell, has accepted a professorship at the University of Wisconsin.

In addition to Susan Shafer-Landau, KU Hillel is losing Lisa Raschke, its assistant director for the last year, and Andrew Zidel, a 2001 KU graduate who has served the organization through a one-year fellowship with the Jewish Campus Service Corps.

Raschke, who is leaving her position June 23, is moving to Raleigh, N.C. Her husband, Gregory, will become head of the collection management department at North Carolina State University.

Zidel, 23, is departing from his job as KU Hillel’s outreach coordinator because his fellowship is over. The Minneapolis, Minn., native is planning on entering a five-year program of study to become a Reform-ordained rabbi.

During Susan Shafer-Landau’s tenure, KU Hillel’s home at 940 Miss. was renovated, the organization’s board was reformed and the staff was tripled.

KU Hillel seems to be on a roll, and staff members hope it won’t lose momentum after they leave.

“It is a lot to lose everybody all at once,” Shafer-Landau said. “It’s hard to have continuity and build on the success of this year. We’re hoping students who have been involved will take on more responsibility and keep the excitement going.”

A search for candidates to fill the three KU Hillel positions is under way.

Filling the vacuum

The departure of Beiner will be a challenge for the members and leadership of the Lawrence Jewish Community Center, who are looking for a replacement.

Beiner is the first rabbi at the center, which was founded in the 1950s. Before she was hired, it had been led by laypeople.

“For any community, large or small, finding a rabbi who is a good fit is difficult,” said Neil Shanberg, the center’s president. “It’s even more so for us in Lawrence for two reasons.

“There’s a scarcity of rabbinic leadership around the country, and trying to attract a rabbi to a small (Jewish) community on a part-time basis is even more difficult.”

The departures among those who serve Lawrence’s Jews are bound to create a vacuum one that Beiner said might be hard to fill, at least for a while.

“One of the things that attracts Jewish professionals to a community are the Jewish professionals who are already there,” she said. “Who are you going to be working with? In this case, you don’t know.”