Our Rabbi was born in Western Pennsylvania, and attended Taylor Allderdice High school. As a teenager he was a president of his Temple youth group, becoming active in the National Federation of Temple Youth, where he met his wife to be, Barbara Levin. After graduation from the University of Pittsburgh, Rabbi Herring went on to Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati where, five years later, he was ordained to the rabbinate. In 1965 Rabbi and Barbara moved to Tachikawa Air Base in a suburb of Tokyo where, for the next three years he served as a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force, serving troops in central and northern Japan, Korea, Taiwan and in the support hospital for Viet Nam. Among his major accomplishments was learning how to make sushi, and climbing Mount Fuji. In 1968, the Herrings moved to Phoenix with their first daughter Laura, where Rabbi Herring took a position as Assistant Rabbi at Temple Beth Israel. He was assigned the primary task of Youth Activities, so, in that time, two more daughters were born to him and Barbara. During the next twenty years, he helped found and develop Camp Charles Pearlstein, serving as its director for fifteen years. He also served as Director of National Federation of Temple Youth Southwest (SWFTY) and SWFTY Summer Institute, Beth Israel youth group (BITY), and helped found the nationally awarded Mitzvah Corp, involving Reform Jewish teens throughout the Southwest, and its Camp SWIFT, serving thousands of inner-city children. Rabbi Herring also created Beth Israel’s cutting edge contemporary worship services for Shabbat and the High Holy Days, remaining a leader in creative liturgical evolution.   

In 1988, Rabbi Herring was invited to become the rabbi of the newly created Temple Kol Ami, and he accepted the position. The congregation quickly outgrew its rental home, and moved into its present facility in 1994. Rabbi Herring has written the prayer books used here for Sabbath and High Holy Days, as well as the astonishing religious school curriculum used by all Kol Ami children. He still teaches youth from pre-school through high school, as well as adults and senior citizens. In 2003, the Central Conference of American Rabbis awarded Rabbi Herring the prestigious Samuel Cook Award for lifetime service in the field of youth.  The Herring children and grandchildren (6!) remain active in Jewish affairs in their own communities.

Raina Sinclair was born in Chicago, Illinois, the second of four children.  When her father, a military officer, was stationed in Paris (France, not Texas) she had the opportunity to study piano with celebrated virtuosa, Aline Van Berentzen.  Raina was a student at the Royal Conservatory of Belgium in Mons and obtained a premier prix de voix.  Upon returning to the United States, she continued music study at the Juilliard School of the Performing Arts in New York City, followed by both music and applied art at the American University in Washington D.C.
Raina enjoyed early opportunities to perform professionally in productions that celebrated the opening of the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington , D.C. in the casts of, the then, newly-mounted New York City Opera Company’s production of  Handel’s Opera “Ariodante”, and famed composer Leonard Bernstein’s theater piece, “ Mass”, commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy for the opening production.

The year following the opening, Raina was a cast member in the touring company that took “Mass” to Philadelphia, and to the Metropolitan Opera in Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. She was one of the performers on the original cast recording.  That same year, Raina took what seemed like a phenomenally remarkable amount of earnings(!) and married her childhood sweetheart, Bill Sinclair.

A short time later the young couple moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, in search of warmer weather (which they subsequently found). Bill began his tenure as an elementary school educator in Moon Valley, and Raina became an instructor of music at Scottsdale Community College, where she taught scores of students for 23 years, continued to teach in her private music studio, and performed in a variety of music venues in the Valley.

Raina and Bill have four children: Heather, a doctor of Nursing in Phoenix, who specializes in electrophysiology; Michael, an attorney in Los Angeles (and guest soloist at our High Holiday Services);  Daniel, a television writer happily employed in Los Angeles, and Benjamin, who works for Current TV and his own entrepreneurial New York Compost Company, an effort to encourage a “greening” of  useable waste in NYC. The first two children and their spouses have provided four grandchildren to date, three girls and a boy.

Raina has been involved as a Jewish educator for thirty years. Thirteen years ago, Rabbi Herring invited her to become the first cantorial soloist  in the history of Temple Kol Ami, where she has continued to the present day. She  works with the students in the Early Childhood Center, providing music, and Judaic programming for the children, teaches in the Religious School and with B’nei Mitzvah  students, officiates with the Rabbi at Shabbat, holiday and life-cycle events, and develops a variety of music and arts programming on a regular basis.

Because of the support of the Board of Directors and the Temple Administration, Raina has enjoyed the opportunity to develop a diverse assortment of projects through the years.  She created the “Mini Mitzvah Project” for the ECC tots to collect food for the Paradise Valley Food Bank. (Our tots collected over 1,500 pounds of food last year!) She has designed and facilitated student creation of a series of Sukkoth quilts to decorate the Temple’s sukkah each year. Students also helped to build a huge chanukiah  that she designed for our most unique display of lights during the Eight Nights of Chanukah. She teamed with a helpful temple member to have a new tree and plantings installed for our celebration of Tu b’Shevat.

Raina recently designed the new memorial garden and, along with the efforts of two wonderful temple members, it is now an inviting, serene space for quiet thought and contemplation.

Raina designs costumes for the annual Purim Spiels, and built” Downtown Metropolitan Greater Shushan”  from cardboard  crates and brass brads.  For the Early Childhood Center’s Passover celebrations, Raina wrote and illustrated an interactive children’s Haggadah. 

Most treasured of all project opportunities have been the creation of  two sets of Torah covers (for holiday festivals and for the rest of the year), the ark valances, the holiday Torah table cover, and the cover for the Torahs when they are out of the ark during a service.

She has presented classes featuring cooking for the holidays, setting festive tables, and won a “Kugel Kook-off Award” one year for her infamous “Triangles of Death” Kugel.

Temple Kol Ami continues to provide Cantor Raina with opportunities to create innovative  programming that educates, entertains, and challenges the boundaries of  potential  avenues for  expression of  ideas and thought.

Vicki Miles is the Temple Kol Ami Religious School principal. She is an Arizona native and an active member of the Jewish community for over 50 years. Vicki has been married to her husband Lewie for 36 years. They have two wonderful married sons, Jeremy & Dawn and Adam & Marya. Her new grandson, Brody, lights up her life and is the shining star at Kol Ami’s monthly Pot Luck. She has taught religious school and Hebrew school throughout her adult life. “I want to bring the joy and enthusiasm I feel towards my Judaism to every member of my staff. As principal, my greatest pleasure is to meet and greet each and every student. This allows me to get to know every child!”
Vicki is a graduate of ASU with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a certificate in gifted education. She has taught elementary school children for over 30 years. She currently teaches gifted students at Desert Heights Charter School.

For questions about the religious school you may contact Vicki at LVJAM@Q.COM.

Debbie Glassman has been the Director of Temple Kol Ami Early Childhood Center since June of 2006. She has taught many different age levels over the past thirty three years including Religious School. In addition, Debbie has been a past Preschool Camp Director.

Debbie grew up in Wisconsin and Minnesota and moved to Arizona in 1983. She graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1974. She is married to Steve Glassman who is also an educator. Debbie is the mother of two children, Angela and Steven.

Phil Adelman and his wife Hannah have been members of Temple Kol Ami for over twenty years. Phil is a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel who was a command pilot with 225 combat rescue missions and then later a logistics officer. He has been teaching in the business program at DeVry University for twenty-six years. He is also a published author of a textbook, Entrepreneurial Finance, which is currently in its fifth edition. Due to many Air Force transfers, Phoenix is the Adelman’s twenty-third home. They have always been active members of congregations and firmly believe that the synagogue must be an integral part of Jewish life. To this end they have belonged to a congregation in all of the communities where they lived. Phil has also been the Jewish Lay Leader at several military bases and his wife has been the either the religious school director or taught Hebrew and Bar Mitzvah programs at most of their congregations. Phil is a graduate of Phoenix College, the University of Nebraska at Omaha and holds an MBA from the University of Utah.

The Adelman’s have three children and seven grandchildren.