Leading U.S. Reform Rabbi Stuns Community by Quitting

BROOKLYN — His announcement stunned almost all who know Rabbi Andy Bachman. One of the best-known rabbis in America, the 51-year-old wrote on his personal blog this week that he is stepping down from his large Reform synagogue in the upscale Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope at the height of his career. He is turning outward, he wrote, to try to impact broader challenges, like poverty, which plague the most vulnerable New Yorkers.