University administrators will form a new search committee this fall to locate a Jewish chaplain for the University after Rabbi Allan Lehmann vacated the position last summer, Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy said.Two search committees failed to find a suitable candidate for the rabbi position. The first committee, headed by Associate Dean of Student Life Jamele Adams, formed last fall but was unsuccessful in finding a part-time rabbi after narrowing the search to five candidates.

Another committee formed last spring by Eddy and headed by Prof. Steven Burg (POL) also failed to find a suitable candidate to be full-time rabbi.

"We are re-launching the committee within the next couple of days," Eddy said. She explained that Burg would continue to chair the new committee. Some members from the old committee would be on the new one as well, she added. "We didn't have as broad a search as we hoped we could."

Last spring's committee included Profs. Jacob Cohen (AMST), Sylvia Fishman (NEJS) and Reuven Kimelman (NEJS) as well as Benjamin Bechtolsheim '10, Esti Schloss '09 and Bryan Wexler '09.

Eddy explained that the delays arose because the University waited until students returned to campus last fall to start the search. She added that after hiring Rabbi Elyse Winick '86 as an interim rabbi at the end of January, "we didn't feel a sense of urgency."

Eddy said she would like the new committee to be more inclusive of all aspects of the Brandeis community, including a University staff member.

"Last year we had three students, all of whom were Jewish," she said. The students should "be representative of the groups on campus."

Two candidates who visited campus last May did not find enough support among members of the search committee, Father Walter Cuenin said, referring to Rabbi Avi Orlow of Washington University in St. Louis and Rabbi David Sandmel of Kehilath Anshe Maarov Isaiah Israel Congregation and the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago.

"There was some support for one and some support for the other candidate. . There didn't seem to be a consensus that was really behind one candidate," Cuenin, who served on both committees, said.

The spring search was very similar to faculty searches, Eddy explained, involving faculty more intensely, including notable professors from the NEJS department, she said.

In an e-mail to the Justice, Schloss wrote that "the consensus was that in order to hire the absolute best fit for the Jewish chaplain at Brandeis the search had to continue."

Bechtolsheim also declined to discuss the specific candidates. "I've heard frustrations expressed by students that we have gone so long without a rabbi, but I'm also pleased that the search we're doing is very deliberate so that we get the best rabbi," he said

Lehmann left Brandeis after seven years to become associate dean of the rabbinical school at Hebrew College in Newton, Mass.

"I would hope to have sufficient time [to hire the new chaplain] by [Jan. 1]," Eddy said.