Leave it to Paul Reichenbach to leave this world on the morning of the second day of Rosh Hashanah — with its Torah portion telling Abraham that it would be impossible to count his descendants, as impossible as counting the stars and the grains of sand.

So, too, with Paul, who spent over 40 years helping to create Reform camp programs (what some believe to be the crown jewel of the movement), helping countless youngsters embrace their Jewish identities and recruiting and managing staff who themselves would go on to teach and transform.

Reichenbach, who died Sept. 13 at the age of 74 after a brief battle with ALS, was legendary in the Reform movement. Starting in 1975, he served on the staff of the youth programs of the Union for Reform Judaism (formerly Union of American Hebrew Congregations), serving as the co-director of the URJ/UAHC Youth Division. At the time of his retirement in 2019, he had been one of its longest serving professionals.

His resume was as large as his appetite — not only for food, but for experiences and life. He had been the co-director of the URJ Kutz Camp-Institute in Warwick, New York, the Reform movement’s teen leadership camp. (It closed in 2019.) He oversaw the URJ’s network of 18 North American camps. For years, he was the voice of the Reform movement, quite literally: He was the deep-voiced announcer at........

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