Rabbi Emeritus Dr. Louis Kaplan

Born in Philadelphia, Rabbi Dr. Louis Kaplan's family moved to Camden, New Jersey when he was three. At Camden High School's graduation exercise he received the award as male winner of the annual public speaking contest. He served in the army for 21 months, including a year in Korea, and was discharged with the rank of staff sergeant.

He holds Bachelor (1949) and Master (1950) degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. While at Penn, the rabbi conducted a weekly Dixieland jazz program on the student radio station, chosing the records from his own collection. During his university years he also taught in the Hebrew and Sunday schools of the Conservative synagogue he had attended years earlier.

Rabbi Kaplan graduated from Philadelphia's Gratz College (1950), where he earned a Teacher of Hebrew diploma and was awarded prizes in education and history. He continued at Gratz for a postgraduate year. In 1956 he was ordained a rabbi at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, from which he also received the degree of Master of Hebrew Literature and the Midrash prize. In 1971 he earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Dropsie University for Hebrew and Cognate Learning. Eleven years later the Seminary presented him with an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree.

Before coming to Ohev Shalom in 1961, then in Chester, PA, Rabbi Kaplan occupied pulpits in Bloomfield, Connecticut for four years and Daytona Beach, Florida for one year.

Among his accomplishments at Ohev Shalom were: a two-year Post-Confirmation department in our school; sending students to Camp Ramah and Israel (an award-winning program with Haifa's Conservative congregation); Monday evening and Wednesday morning adult education classes; teaching many converts; innovations in prayer services; holding the Bat Mitzvah ceremony on Shabbat morning; being the first Conservative congregation in Greater Philadelphia to have aliyot (Torah honors) for women and to count them in a minyan (prayer quorum).

The rabbi was active in interfaith work. He held the office of president in the Ministerium of Chester and Vicinity, Interfaith Council of Nether Providence Clergy, and the Swarthmore-Wallingford Interfaith Ministerium. He originated "Quest: An Experiment in Interfaith Understanding," which involves Ohev Shalom, St. John Chrysostom Roman Catholic Church, and Swarthmore Presbyterian Church, and was co-founder of the "Covenant of Faith" binding these three institutions. In 1972, Rabbi Kaplan, Monsignor Frederick Stevenson, and Reverend J. Barrie Shepherd were co-winners of the Sylvan K. Cohen Award from the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Philadelphia.

Rabbi Kaplan served as president of the Philadelphia Region of the Rabbinical Assembly. He was a member of the Research Committee and Institutional Review Board at Crozer-Chester Medical Center and the board of directors of Crozer Library, Suburban Opera Company, and the Chester Human relations Council. He even served on the Ministers' Advisory Board of (Christian) Crozer Theological Seminary.

In addition to his work as rabbi at Ohev Shalom, and from 1983 to 1992 as school principal, Rabbi Kaplan held the positions of adjunct lecturer in English and Judaica at the Delaware County Campus of Pennsylvania State University (1973-1981) and of adjunct assistant professor of Judaica at Widener University (1989-1992, 1994). He was chaplain to Jewish students at Widener University and conducted a monthly prayer-study-song session at four area nursing homes. The rabbi also taught courses and spoke in churches, and delivered talks at synagogues, high schools, universities, and community organizations. His writings have appeared in various scholarly and popular publications.

He continues to teach in the Lunch and Learn program sponsored by the Philadelphia Region of the Rabbinical Assembly, Women's League Institute of Southern New Jersey, and the Wallingford-Swarthmore Community Classes.

Rabbi Kaplan served as Ohev Shalom's religious leader from 1961 to his retirement in 1992. For thirteen months in 2001-2002, when the congregation was searching for a spiritual leader, he returned as the part-time rabbi.

The rabbi's wife, Mindell, who will be remembered with affection by many, died in June 2001. He has two married daughters, Deborah and Leah, and three grandchildren: Rachel, David, and Jonah.