Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

Senior Rabbi of Temple Beth-El

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor was installed as the senior Rabbi of Temple Beth-El on October 3, 1993. Since assuming this position he has instituted many programs in Adult Education: a weekly Talmud class for adults, bi-monthly Torah Class, a weekly class in Basic Judaism and has actively worked with those seeking Judaism as their personal faith. With his wife, Ruby, he has worked with the Youth Committee for the renewal of the synagogue youth groups of USY and Kadima. He has been instrumental in returning post B'nai Mitzvah to participate in services and reading Torah. Under his direction, the Mollie Brown & Sylvia Janus Mikvah was built at Temple Beth-El that serves in the entire central Virginia and Shenandoah Valley.

Deeply involved in the community, Rabbi Creditor serves on the Federation Board, co-chairman of the Jewish Communal Workers Division of the Community Welfare Campaign, the Strategic Planning Task Force, the Richmond Jewish Students Association advisory committee, and on the Ad Hoc advisory committee for COMJE, commission on Jewish education. He is a participating member of the Richmond Rabbinic Association, currently serving as its chairman. He has served for two years as the Jewish representative to the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy.

Rabbi Creditor has spoken to a wide and diverse spectrum of institutions in the city. He spoke before the Kiwanis Club about the meaning of Hanukkah, taught classes and participated in a joint presentation about the Middle East to the Governor's School for Governmental and International Studies. At the Jewish Community Center he has delivered a book review, and lectured for the Jewish Women's Room and Jewish Women's Club. Rabbi Creditor has participated in the general community and with Governor Kaine in the memorial program for the students and faculty who died at Virginia Tech.

Rabbi Creditor is a member of the Rabbinical Assembly of America nationally and served on its nominating committee. He is also a member of the Washington Board of Rabbis, the Washington-Baltimore region of the Rabbinical Assembly, and New York Board of Rabbis, where he was a member of the Board of Governors and on its HaRav Hotline outreach program. He served two years as the president of the Long Island Board of Rabbis, also having been its vice-president. He was a member of the board of the Youth Council of Plainview-Old Bethpage, N.Y. While serving a congregation in Connecticut , Rabbi Creditor was president of the Jewish Educators Assembly. He was the Rabbi of congregations in New Jersey, Maryland , Connecticut , and Long Island, New York before ascending to the position in Richmond .

Rabbi Creditor was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the world-wide center for Conservative Judaism, in 1976, the program included one year living in Israel. He received his M.A. in Talmud from the Seminary in 1974. He attended the Combined Program between Columbia University and the Seminary, receiving his B.A. in Far Eastern Religions and B.H.L. (Bachelor of Hebrew Literature), respectively in 1971. As part of that program he also studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem , 1968-1969. In 2003 he received his Doctorate from J.T.S. recognizing more than 25 years of Rabbinic service. He and his wife, Ruby, spent his Sabbatical months in the fall of 2004, studying in Jerusalem and has led a tour to Israel in the summer of 2006.

Always interested in children, Rabbi Creditor has worked as a counselor, teacher, and librarian at Camp Ramah in the Poconos, Berkshires, and Palmer, MA. He has worked for USY as a group advisor and at many encampments and week-end retreats for several regions. For many years he was a youth director and teen-age congregation director in Bayside, New York , having also taught Hebrew School in Port Washington, New York.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Rabbi Creditor grew up in Belleville, New Jersey. After graduating from his synagogue's Talmud Torah, he continued his education in Jewish studies at the Central Hebrew High School of Essex County, New Jersey and the Prozdor division of the Jewish Theological Seminary. While in high school, he was active in the Northern New Jersey HaGalil Region of United Synagogue Youth as chapter president and religious chairman for the region and regional shabbatons and encampments.

He and Ruby are blessed with three children, their youngest daughter graduated from VCU and made Aliyah to Israel in December, 2008; their middle daughter, after receiving her two bachelor degrees and masters, has returned to the Jewish Theological Seminary, studying for the Rabbinate; and their oldest, a son, was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2002 and is now the Rabbi of a Conservative Congregation in Berkley, California after serving for five years as the second Rabbi in a congregation in Sharon, Massachusetts.