If you’re a Jewish Philadelphian, you’ve probably heard of Rabbi Michael Perice.

He’s a son on his mother’s side of the Goldsteins’ Rosenberg’s Funeral Directors family, which has locations in Philadelphia, Bucks County, Ambler, Conshohocken and South Jersey.

He’s the former opioid addict who shared his story to Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, the Philadelphia Inquirer and other media outlets, going viral in the region and in the Jewish world.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, he’s the 2020 graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote who went on to lead Temple Sinai of Cinnaminson for 4 1/2 years.

But in the summer of 2024, Perice left the Philadelphia area for Los Angeles to serve as the senior rabbi at Beit T’Shuvah, a synagogue that doubles as an addiction recovery community and treatment center.

“As a person in long-term recovery, I have been inspired by the mission and lifesaving work of Beit T’Shuvah for many years,” Perice told the Beverly Press, a local newspaper serving Beverly Hills, West Hollywood and other areas within the LA region. “Being its next rabbi is not only an honor but the culmination of a spiritual, personal and professional journey.”

Two years later, however, Perice is back. He has signed on to become the rabbi at Historic Congregation Kesher Israel in Philadelphia’s Society Hill neighborhood. The 40-year-old starts on Sept. 1.

“We made the decision as a family that LA was not the place we wanted to be. There is really no place like home,” said the rabbi, who has a young son.

Perice has actually been back for 11 months. Over the past year, he has officiated at more than 100 Jewish funerals in the area through his family’s company. He knows a lot of people in Jewish Philadelphia, and he can’t replicate that out West.

“When I think about the career I want, this is where I can do the most good,” he said.

A board member at Kesher Israel attended one of the funerals and contacted Norman Millan, Kesher Israel’s executive director, about Perice. Millan then reached out to the young rabbi.

“I said, ‘There’s a million things I could do, but I’m looking for the right job.’ He said, ‘If you want to come and meet, we have a lot going on here. I think you might like what we have.’”

Millan said the synagogue needed a younger leader.

“We have dedicated congregants, but we’re all getting older, me included, and we knew we had to handle the monumental task of bringing the next generation into our building,” he explained.

Kesher Israel only has 127 member families, but as Millan told Perice, he is not merely presiding over decline.

The synagogue has a preschool with over 60 students, about half of whom are not Jewish. The school is known in the community for its Reggio Emilia approach to education, which puts independent play at the center of the curriculum.

The school also emphasizes Jewish traditions and values and comes with a free synagogue membership.

“We value their rights, their opinions, their ability to do things,” said Dawn Klemash, the director of the program, to Philadelphia Jewish Exponent in 2023. “We try to have a program that allows kids to be independent, and an active participant in their community.”

In addition to the preschool, 35-40 members attend a weekly Saturday Shabbat service and brunch.

There are good bones here. It’s now Perice’s job to go out and find the next generation.

When he talked to Millan, he was excited by the challenge of trying to bring them in and help revive a congregation that has been around since the 19th century.

“Here’s this very historic congregation: one of the oldest Ashkenazic congregations in the country. Like many older congregations, it hasn’t seen its heyday in a long time. Can you bring vibrancy back to this historic and tradition-based place?” he asked.

“If you walk around this part of Philadelphia, it’s all young families in their 20s and 30s,” he added.

Millan said he wanted to hire Perice in part because of the younger man’s charisma and energy. The rabbi believes that he needs to take that charisma and energy outside of the synagogue walls.

“I can’t just be a rabbi sitting in an office expecting people to come to us. I have to be out in the world, doing lifecycles, doing programs, meeting people where they are. I think a lot of this is done through personal connection,” he said.

Perice also wants to connect with other Jewish organizations and communities in the area.

His wife, Rachael Perice, is now the senior director for strategy and development at Tribe 12, the nonprofit organization that connects Jews in their 20s and 30s to Jewish life.

Tribe 12 does matchmaking for young people on the High Holidays.

“They realized Kesher Israel wasn’t on the list. We got on the list. It’s those types of things,” Perice said.

Perice also plans to establish a synagogue presence on social media.

“Right now, the synagogue has no social media. I’m very much going to be pushing our social media so the wider public can see it,” he said.

The rabbi lives in South Jersey, and his son goes to school at the Katz JCC in Cherry Hill.
He’s happy to be home.

“It feels good on multiple levels. It feels like a homecoming. It’s good for my family. You don’t realize how important it is until it’s not there. Watching my parents be able to be with my son every day, that was really missing,” he said.

“I think everybody dreams of moving on and going to the big city and accomplishing something great, but what I’ve found is that the greatness I’ve found in my life, it happened in this city,” he concluded.

jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com