Pied Piper Wends His Way to Tarzana's Temple Judea

The Pied Piper is coming from Utah to Tarzana.

Joshua Aaronson is scheduled to join 1,000-family Reform Temple Judea in Tarzana as senior rabbi beginning Monday.

One of his congregants at the 300-family Temple Har Shalom in Park City, UT, recalls the rabbi was playing his guitar and leading the little ones in song.

"He began walking back and forth across the bima [platform] and the children lined up behind him, following him wherever he went, singing with big smiles on their faces," Joy Erickson told the Salt Lake Tribune. "I remember thinking he was like the Pied Piper … people would follow him anywhere."

Rabbi Aaronson is an avid guitarist with eclectic tastes from classic rock to jazz and Frank Sinatra. He also composes liturgical music, according to the Tribune.

Upon his arrival in Utah in 2002, the rabbi wrote that he stands "for all that is good and enduring in Judaism and in America."

"I want our children to know that whomever they decide to embrace as a life partner — a Jew, a non-Jew, a person of the same sex or a person of the opposite sex — there will be a place for them in this community."

And now he brings that optimism and openness to his new religious home in Tarzana.

Read more about Rabbi Joshua Aaronson here and here.