I am sure Rabbi Elazar Muskin at YICC and Rabbi Kalman Topp at Beth Jacob earn (or could earn) over $500,000 a year (counting all benefits and tax advantages and paid tuition for their children, unless the rabbis decline this amount of compensation). I suspect Rabbi David Wolpe at Sinai Temple earns close to a million dollars a year (unless he seeks a pay cut).
Modern Orthodox Judaism is for the rich. I’ve read that Modern Orthodox Jews average $110,000 annual income per family, the most of any Jewish denomination.
I’m told that the big benefit that clergy of all faiths receive is parsonage–basically everything they receive towards their housing is tax-free.
So let’s say a rabbi makes:
200,00 salary
150,000 educational benefits (with 5 kids)
100,000 parsonage (valued as $150,000 because it is pretax)
That’s $500,000.
From what I see, pulpit rabbis, including Orthodox ones, live better than 80% of their congregants (but they also have skills, IQs and contributions superior to 80% of their congregants). All the big pulpit rabbis I know own their own homes. Most Orthodox Jews in 90035 do not own their own homes. You have to earn at least $250,000 a year to own a home in 90035, belong to a shul, and send your kids to Jewish schools.
Rabbis are not expected by the community to donate at the same level as their congregants.
Houses of worship, such as shuls, are not required to publicly reveal the salaries they pay.
