Rabbi Kranz Lauded as Leader, Mentor & Friend

Rabbi Philip Kranz, who served as the senior rabbi at Temple Sinai in Sandy Springs for 26 years and then actively served as rabbi emeritus for another 20 years, died April 12. He was 83.

At a memorial service and two evenings of shiva that followed at the temple, his life was warmly remembered. His friends and family spoke of his friendship and dedication to others and his lifelong interest in teaching and learning.

Temple Sinai’s library, The Kranz Institute of Jewish Learning, which he helped build into an outstanding facility, is named in his honor. He taught courses in the sociology of religion at Georgia State University and Agnes Scott College. He was a former president of Atlanta Planned Parenthood and a board member of Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School. The New Israel Fund’s Atlanta chapter had planned to honor him next month with its annual Tzedek Award.

But perhaps one of his most important roles as a teacher and mentor was in the guidance and grooming he gave to Rabbi Ron Segal, who succeeded him at Temple Sinai. Kranz had hired the young rabbi as his assistant in 1996 right out of Hebrew Union College, the Reform seminary. Ten years later, he strongly advocated on Segal’s behalf to be his successor. The bond between the two men was clearly evident when Rabbi Segal spoke of his personal loss.

“In ways unlike any other person I have or ever will know, Phil possessed an incomparable capacity to make every person, each one of us, feel seen, feel understood. It was his gift, his uniquely special superpower, and a world without him, without that one person who saw and valued and loved us unconditionally has unquestionably left us and our community diminished and heartbroken.”

Rabbi Kranz came to the Sandy Springs congregation in 1980 after the death of Rabbi Richard Lehrman, the founding rabbi who had built a strong following as an assistant rabbi at The Temple in Midtown.

The president of the congregation at the time, Jan Epstein, remembered how Rabbi Kranz provided strong leadership when it was sorely needed.

“I remember asking him during the interview process, what would you do in light of the emotional attachment we all had for Richard Lehrman? And he said, ‘I will stand on his shoulders.’ Well, this certainly made an impact on us. And he certainly did stand on our founding rabbi’s shoulders.”

When Rabbi Kranz arrived 46 years ago, the congregation, which had built its sanctuary on a steep hill in what was then a still developing suburb, numbered only 350. Today’s congregation is one of the leading institutions in the Reform movement in America with a thriving preschool, an expansive sanctuary and grounds, a healthy endowment, and 1,800 families.

Its professional staff has provided national leadership for the Reform movement’s professional educational organization and for the movement’s business and administrative staffs at temples in North America. In recent years, Rabbi Segal has been the president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, which represents the nation’s Reform clergy.

One of Rabbi Kranz’s contemporaries, Rabbi Donald Tam, was the founding rabbi of Temple Beth Tikvah in Roswell. He lent his name to the Tam Center for Jewish Studies at Emory University and, during his 17 years at the Roswell temple, he remembered Rabbi Kranz as a generous colleague.

“He brought a great deal to the table, intelligence, compassion, and commitment to community,” Rabbi Tam commented. “When I needed someone to talk with, he was a loyal and wonderful friend.”

During the hour-and-a-half of tributes at the memorial service, several friends and professional colleagues spoke in similar terms. His friend, Doug Ross, remembered how the rabbi didn’t let two decades of retirement change his commitment to life and learning.

“He would often tap into his endless repertoire of stories and relationships with remarkable speed, always bringing helpful and humorous perspective to the subject at hand. A couple of years ago, I joked with him that it was too bad that he wasn’t a computer so that we could back him up to the cloud.”

But what was so evident at the service was how he will be missed by those like Temple Sinai Rabbi Brad Levenberg, who worked closely with Rabbi Kranz over the last 20 years. In concluding the service, he quoted the words of the poet Maya Angelou.

“When great souls die, after a period, peace blooms slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing, electric vibration. Our senses restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. We can be. Be and be better, for they existed.”