Our Clergy
Rabbi Mark Hyman
Rabbi Mark Hyman’s journey to the rabbinate has spanned more than thirty-four years and has enriched his life with the blessings of good friends, wonderful teachers, and the inspiration of Torah.
Born in Mt. Vernon, New York, Mark’s family emigrated to California with his parents and two sisters in the early 50s seeking new opportunities and better weather. His family was very committed to Jewish life, community and education, and Rabbi Mark’s early years focused on his Hebrew studies, Boy Scouts, and playing the French horn. After his family moved from ‘the Valley’ to Beverlywood in 1961, his opportunities for Jewish enrichment blossomed.
Parallel to his secular studies, Rabbi Mark attended the Los Angeles Hebrew High School, the University of Judaism, and served as camping and nature specialist at Camp Ramah in Ojai for many years. He began his formal rabbinical education at UCLA (B.A.-Hebrew) and continued in 1967 as a student at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Taking what in retrospect was a very long sabbatical break; he continued his work in the Jewish community as a youth director and teacher.
In the intervening years Rabbi Mark pursued his love of travel and adventure as he worked as a corporate and international travel consultant and spent several years on assignment in the Yucatan and Jamaica. He married Risa Kishineff in 1974 and after moving to Manhattan Beach in 1979, Rabbi Mark’s family immediately joined Congregation Tifereth Jacob, then a truly small haimish shul of about forty families with a only a Shabbat and High Holiday rabbi. Several years later, after serving as a board member, ritual committee chairperson, and High Holiday Shofar blower, the Hymans were blessed with two children: a son, Jonathan, and daughter, Marissa.
Rabbi Mark’s academic and rabbinical hiatus came to an end as CTJ called upon him to fill the position of the synagogue’s three-fold, yet part-time role as spiritual leader. August 1987 marked the beginning of his career as our ‘not-yet-ordained’ rabbinical and spiritual leader, cantor, and educational director (and some say administrator and shamash). Our community continued to grow and at the age of forty eight, Reb Mark returned to formal graduate studies at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies while continuing to lead our community. He received a Masters in Hebrew Literature and Rabbinic Ordination in 2001.
Rabbi Mark became Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Tikvat Jacob Beth Torah in the summer of 2016 and is activing as Congregation Ner Tamid's interim rabbi through June 2023.
Cantor Ken Jaffe
Cantor Kenneth Jaffe is a graduate of the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He has served congregations in New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Missouri and in California. Prior to entering the cantorate, Cantor Jaffe sang opera professionally throughout the United States, having performed dozens of roles in several opera companies. Cantor Jaffe’s bibliography, “Solo Vocal Works on Jewish Themes: A Bibliography of Jewish Composers,” is published by Scarecrow Press and is considered the most extensive Jewish music bibliography published in the last 60 years. His songs have been published by Transcontinental Music and are sung in many congregations around the country. He is also a specialist in Jewish educational music and has recorded a CD of original songs for children.
Rabbi Cantor Emeritus Samuel B. Radwine
Rabbi Cantor Samuel B. Radwine graduated from the University of Illinois with a Bachelor’s Degree in Instrumental Music Education and taught in the Bethany, Illinois Public Schools. He left Illinois for New York City, where he studied at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion/Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music and was ordained in 1981. After serving pulpits in Fair Lawn, New Jersey and Danbury, Connecticut, he came to Congregation Ner Tamid of South Bay, in Rancho Palos Verdes, California in 1986, where he served both as Cantor and Director of Education, becoming Cantor Emeritus in 2013. During his time in California, Cantor Radwine also was on the faculty of Hebrew Union College/Los Angeles, and subsequently as a faculty member of both the Rabbinical and Cantorial Schools of the Academy for Jewish Religion/CA. After “retirement,” Cantor Radwine and his husband, Wade Sisco, relocated to Palm Springs, where he became the Cantor for the Sun City Jewish Congregation and Har El Congregation, both in Palm Desert.
In 2017, Sam and his husband, Wade Sisco relocated to Northwest Arkansas. Upon joining the local synagogue, Congregation Etz Chaim of Bentonville, Sam was asked to become its Spiritual Leader. While in this role, Sam decided to pursue rabbinic smicha and became an ordained Rabbi with the class of 2021 of the Academy for Jewish Religion/California (AJRCA) in Los Angeles. In August 2021, Rabbi Cantor Radwine became the Dean of the Cantorial School of the AJRCA.