It wasn’t so long ago that my Facebook Newsfeed was filled with predictions of Hurricane Sandy. Everyone on the East Coast was talking about it – how strange it was to have a hurricane set to hit so far north. When it was downgraded to a tropical storm, everyone breathed a sign of relief – and when it was labeled a hurricane again, everyone got nervous all over. People took pictures of empty shelves at the grocery store, posted statuses about weather updates with radar imaging – but all we could do from Jerusalem was watch and wait for the storm to hit. So we did. We watched as the storm tore through New Jersey and New York. We listened…
This week, I had the honor of attending the General Assembly meeting of the Jewish Federations of North America as a Wexner Graduate Fellow. My fellowship cohort is composed of 20 Jewish leaders from different denominations and career paths. We are rabbinical students attending Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and non-denominational schools; we are Jewish professionals and Ph.D students. We reflect the great diversity and complexity of the Jewish community today. The Federation “GA,” as it’s commonly called, provided a unique backdrop to highlight the pluralistic reality of both my Wexner cohort and the North American Jewish community. As a student in HUC-JIR’s rabbinical program, I was proud to be represented by URJ President, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, who was selected as the…
Just a few short months ago I received my Certificate in Jewish Education for Adolescents and Emerging Adults from HUC-JIR in the mail. An entire season has passed since I completed my coursework, and life after this program is well underway. This new certificate is proudly displayed on my wall in my office at the American Hebrew Academy, an international Jewish boarding school in Greensboro, North Carolina. Founded in 1996, the Academy was established to provide an outstanding co-educational college preparatory program and Jewish secondary education to intellectually motivated and high achieving Jewish teenagers from around the world. In addition to being the Administrative Coordinator for Student and Jewish Life and a teacher in the Jewish Studies department, I have…
Imagine a world without the voices of women. In Reform Jewish communities, it is natural for a rabbi to lead her congregation in song, for a cantor to teach her favorite niggun during a Friday evening service, or for a young woman to lead birkhat hamazon, the blessing after meals, for her youth group. As a rabbinical student, I take the greatest joy in chanting Torah and creating lively musical services at my congregation. At our URJ summer camps, at our Biennial gatherings, at our synagogue Shabbat services, and beyond, music and song are essential to who we are as a movement. In our daily lives and in our sacred moments, a world without the voices of women would be dramatically different in the ways…
Hello future classmates, colleagues, and friends. If you’re interested in applying to HUC-JIR to be a rabbi, educator, or cantor, but something is holding you back, please keep reading. I’ve been in Israel now 4 months. My first year is already a third of the way over and it’s hard to believe that it’s gone by so fast! Now that I have some down time from classes, settling into Israel, and the High Holy Days, I’m able to reflect for a few minutes on my journey and what held me back for so long. Since I was a young child going to Sunday School, I’ve been fascinated by Judaism and intrigued about the idea of becoming a rabbi. I minored…
The week before my New York wedding, I boarded a train at Penn Station, Boston-bound, to immerse at Mayyim Hayyim. I was flustered and hurried, as brides often are in those logistics-packed pre-wedding days. The instructions in the prep rooms at the mikveh gently urged me to slow down, to reflect, and to clean under every fingernail. As I lathered my body with the soapy washcloth, I began crying big tears of release, of memory, of transition. The last time I had felt a soapy washcloth on my body was when my parents bathed me as a girl. Until that moment, I had been preoccupied mostly with place cards, flowers and seating arrangements. Standing in the shower at Mayyim Hayyim,…
Last year I was given an incredible opportunity when I was chosen to be part of the first cohort of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s new certificate program in Jewish Education. A year later, I have completed all of the courses, graduated from the program, and received a Certification in Jewish Education for Adolescent and Emerging Adults. I don’t think that HUC-JIR realized it, but the material we learned would be just a small part of what made the program so wonderful. Forty percent of the program takes place online and our first assignments were given through the website. I didn’t meet the other classmates at that point, but we began interacting in the chat room forums for our…