To be rabbi of O'ahu's (and Hawai'i's) largest Jewish congregation is to be the most visible source of information, solace and services for everyone from the thousands of unaffiliated Jews living here to the thousands of visitors and military personnel that pass through Hawai'i.

Last month, Rabbi Arnold J. "Avi" Magid quietly stepped down as rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, which is now seeking a new leader. In a written statement, Temple president George Apter said Magid left "to attend to personal health matters."

Apter's statement continued: "We are sad to see Rabbi Magid go — he has long been an instrumental leader and teacher for our congregation, the broader Jewish community ... and has touched many lives during his lengthy and distinguished years of service at Temple Emanu-El. We will miss him."

Craig Washofsky, vice president of the board of trustees of the congregation, said the congregation has posted a listing with the Union of Reformed Judaism's Conference of American Rabbis, seeking an interim rabbi to serve from September to May or June of 2006. A search committee has been selected, led by attorney Bob Katz and Hawaii Pacific University professor Saundra Schwartz.

The congregation also is seeking a new executive director, the chief financial officer and operations officer. Michelle Robinson, who held the post for 12 years, is moving to the Mainland, Magid said.

Meanwhile Magid, 57, is reflecting on the past and considering his future. After a period during which he had to add military chaplain to his list of titles, since the military rabbi here is serving in Afghanistan, he said, "I basically just reached down for some more energy and discovered it wasn't there."

He intends to remain in Hawai'i where the youngest of his four children is in 10th grade. The three eldest children, and three grandchildren, live on the Mainland.

He's "recycling," not retiring, Magid said with a flash of characteristic wry humor. And, later, "it's not burned out, it's vacuumed out."

Mainland cities of this size offer a sophisticated network of Jewish institutions. But here that network is smaller and less visible, Magid said. There are only about 10 Jewish congregations in Hawai'i and few of these have temples or rabbis.

Magid also "guesstimates" that, for a city of this size, with an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people from Jewish backgrounds, "we probably have the lowest percentage of affiliation (with a congregation) in the country.

So Temple Emanu-El, with its 300-family roster and spacious Nu'uanu campus, tends to get the calls, whether it's visitors wanting a tour of the temple, tourists seeking kosher food in Honolulu, military families in need of counseling or a reporter wanting comment on a story about Israel.

This ability to serve as a public spokesperson will be one of the talents sought in a replacement, said Washofsky.

Magid said his proudest accomplishment, however, was the creation of Gan Yerushalayim — in Hebrew, "The Garden of Jerusalem" — also known as the Honolulu Community Jewish Preschool.

He said the word "community" was purposefully chosen to make it clear that the school was for children from all backgrounds. Many non-Jewish children have passed through the school, building goodwill and establishing connections between the temple and people who might otherwise have no contact with the Jewish community. And, although this wasn't a goal of the school, it has ignited people's interest in Judaism, resulting in some conversions.

Born in Greensboro, N.C., and ordained in 1975, Magid served Temple Emanu-El from 1979 to 1989, moved to a White Plains, N.Y., congregation, then was recalled to Honolulu in June, 1995.

In 1979, he said, Temple Emanu-El was "very much haole, very much classical reformed, with a non-Jewish choir with an organ and a great deal of English in the service." Today, the congregation is composed of many inter-faith and multi-cultural families, the services are what Magid calls "formally informal," more of the Friday night seder is in Hebrew, children are included in the service and there is a lot of congregational participation instead of a top-down, rabbi-preaches model.

Magid said if being a Jew in Hawai'i is characterized by isolation from a larger support system, it is also ideally characterized by openness and acceptance. "In a place like this, the congregation has to, as the Bible says, 'open up its tent flaps,' to encourage, welcome and embrace anyone that wants to be part of the community," he said.

It's unusual to find Asians and Pacific Islanders among the membership of Jewish congregations in many locations on the Mainland. Magid recalled a little sadly that, when he has taken confirmation classes on biannual trips to the Mainland, he has sometimes had to drop a word or two ahead of time to Jewish groups with which they planned to meet that "the face of our kids is very different."

He said Temple Emanu-El sees a larger number of people adopting Judaism than is common in synagogues — 5 to 8 people a year, often the non-Jewish member of an inter-faith couple.

Magid says he leaves Gad Yerushalayim and Temple Emanu-El with "a great deal of aloha."