Our Alumni

Rabbis Ezra Balser, Elizabeth Bonney-Cohen, Sarah Mulhern, & Frankie Sandmel BASE Rabbis

Finding a Jewish Home Base

Rabbinical School alumni Ezra Balser ’17, Elizabeth Bonney-Cohen ’18 (above) and Sarah Mulhern ’17 are on the forefront of a burgeoning movement designed to meet young-adult Jews where they are.

The Base movement, the brainchild of four 20-something friends from the Upper West Side of Manhattan, was born of the belief that many young Jews today yearn to experience, practice, and celebrate their religious heritage unencumbered by the formal dictates of, say, a synagogue or Chabad house.

Under the program, the home of a rabbinic family (a rabbi and a partner/spouse who may or may not also be a rabbi) serves as the grounding point — or “base” — for communal hospitality, learning and service. (Clever readers will recognize that the Hebrew word for “home” is בית, pronounced as “bās” by speakers of Ashkenazi Hebrew.) Participants gather at their respective rabbi’s home to share Shabbat dinners, celebrate the Jewish holidays, learn from Jewish texts and traditions, develop a Jewish social network and engage in the Jewish value of service.

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Rabbi Mónica Gomery `17 & Rabbi Ari Lev Fornari `14 Clergy Alumni Pairs

Professional Hevrutot

Learning in “hevrutot” [pairs] is a hallmark of Hebrew College. And three pairs of Hebrew College alumni, who work together as spiritual leaders of their respective synagogues, have extended that model to their professional lives.

We talked with these three sets of clergy teams—Rabbi Sam Blumberg`21 and Cantor David Wolff` 20 at Temple Beth Am in Framingham, MA; Rabbi Arielle Lekach-Rosenberg`17 and Rabbi Joey Glick `22 at Temple Shir Tikvah in Minneapolis; and Rabbi Ari Lev Fornari `14 and Rabbi Mónica Gomery `17 (pictured above) at Kol Tzedek in Philadelphia—and asked them about how their experiences at Hebrew College have helped mold their working relationships and spiritual leadership. Interviews were conducted separately and have been edited for length and clarity.

Read the interview…

Orna Siegel, MJEd`16 Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Washington, D.C.

Director of Enrollment and Tuition Assistance, Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Washington, D.C.

“The inner drive that compels me to work in the Jewish community may be rooted in my personal history or psychology, or per the definition, rooted in some divinely inspired pull on my neshama, my soul. Either way, I have spent my career serving the Jewish people, primarily through day school education. While recruiting families to day school may seem somewhat prosaic, my conviction stems in the belief that to survive as a people, our religion, culture, and language must be transmitted to the next generation through holistic, deep, and daily encounters. This is the approach I found at all three day schools where I have proudly enrolled new students, at Gann Academy, JCDS, Boston’s Jewish Community Day School, and now at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School. So while one could crassly categorize my job as the Director of Enrollment as a “sales” position, I view it as God’s holy work, and this is the difference between “work” and a “sacred calling” – it elevates the mundane to the holy.” ( Excerpt from The Sacred Duty of a Jewish Educator).

Rav- Hazzan Aliza Berger, Rab`17, Can`17 Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA

Rav-Hazzan, Temple Emanuel, Newton, MA

Spend a few minutes with Rav-Hazzan Aliza Berger and it’s apparent she loves her work as a rabbi and a cantor. Berger, whose portfolio at Temple Emanuel, a Conservative congregation in Newton, includes supporting teens and young adults, also delivers sermons, officiates at life cycle events and sings during prayers. A graduate of Hebrew College’s Rav-Hazzan ordination program, she notes that the difference between a rabbi who is a cantor and a rav-hazzan has mostly to do with linguistics. “When Hebrew College created the joint Rav-Hazzan program,” Berger told JewishBoston, “they chose the word hazzan [instead of cantor] because it is both uniquely Jewish and reflects someone who has taken on a clergy role. They designated rabbi as rav so that the two titles matched.”

Berger grew up in Denver in the Jewish Renewal movement. Although it was an hour’s drive from her home, she attended Sunday school at what was then called the Jewish Renewal Community of Boulder. Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, a leader in the movement, and Jewish Renewal founder, the late Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, were her early mentors. Berger also credits her parents with creating a vibrant Jewish home where there was Shabbat dinner every week and a night of music. “Friday night my dad got out his guitar, and my mother, younger sister and I sang and danced around the living room for hours,” she said.

Music and Judaism have always been an integral part of Berger’s life. She knew she wanted to be a rabbi from an early age, and in high school she sang with the Denver Opera Company. “I became so enamored of the opera world, I wanted to be an opera singer and then go to rabbinical school,” she said. Berger became serious enough about music that post-high school she wanted to go to a conservatory. But her parents insisted that she also get an academic education. She chose Vanderbilt University in Nashville for its stellar Jewish studies and vocal music departments.

At Vanderbilt, her Judaism ran the gamut from leading Reform services at Hillel her freshman year to taking an active role later on in Chabad services. “I switched because I wanted a more traditional experience, but what I really wanted was a Jewish Renewal congregation,” she said. At Chabad, Berger identified with the Hasidism around her. “Chabad was the closest thing to what I grew up with. There was a lot of singing and dancing. Even the melodies were similar,” she recalled.

By the time Berger graduated, she was deciding between remaining in Nashville to teach or spending a year in Israel. Her decision was made when she was awarded a scholarship to Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. At Pardes, she ran the egalitarian minyan and embraced her studies at the beit midrash. In Israel, many of her fellow students were from Hebrew College’s rabbinical and cantorial programs. “I loved the way they sang, the way they did social justice work,” she said. “They were doing everything I wanted to do.” By the time her year in Israel ended, Berger had been accepted to Hebrew College’s rabbinical program. The Rav-Hazzan program was founded in her third year at the college.

For Berger, Hebrew College’s post-denominational bent encompassed all the various parts that she cherished about being Jewish. “Jewish Renewal is an orientation and a way of being Jewish that is in line with post-denominational Judaism and Conservative Judaism,” she observed. “You have to find a way to connect with each ritual. We think of denominations as places where people gather based on an affinity for a way of doing or being Jewish. But in reality, they are collections of pluralistic Jews who come to a community for many reasons.”

Nowhere is this more obvious to Berger than in her work with teens and young adults. She is particularly focused on helping the teens she meets stay “plugged in and make Jewish choices after their b’nei mitzvah. There’s a delicate dance that goes into helping teens and young adults find a personal connection to Judaism. There are a lot of Jewish options for them to have in their lives. I want to show them that Judaism is a great app for life, and I want young people to download the version that works for them.”

During the High Holidays, Berger divides her time between leading teen and family services, as well as participating in adult services in Temple Emanuel’s Community Hall. As for explaining the relationship between her rabbinical and cantorial duties, she compares the cantorial part of her work as akin to establishing a Wi-Fi zone. “The nusach, or melodic prayers, of a service are like a password that gives us access to search the divine realm for what we need,” she said. “The rabbi sets up scenes through words, text that is spoken or studied and liturgy. The cantor fills those scenes. The place where those two worlds meet is the most connective for me.” (Reprinted from JewishBoston.com, Sept. 2017)

Cantor Hinda Tzvia Eisen Labovitz '14 Ohr Kodesh Congregation, Chevy Chase, MD

Cantor, Ohr Kodesh Congregation, Chevy Chase, MD

“I hope there are people who are as happy and content with their professional and spiritual lives as I have been as a result of the education I received at Hebrew College.” In fact, Hinda was the reason why her former intern, Jessica Woolf, decided to become a cantor and pursue ordination in Hebrew College’s Cantorial Ordination for Spiritual and Educational Leadership (COSEL) program.

Watch a Video with Cantor Labovitz and Cantorial Student Jessica Woolf

Rabbi David Fainsilber `14 The Jewish Community of Greater Stowe, VT.

Hebrew College 2014 alumnus Rabbi David Fainsilber `14 uses music to bring chesed to his congregation, The Jewish Community of Greater Stowe, VT.

Sarah Winn, JTFGB`18 Student, Syracuse University

Jewish Teen Foundation of Greater Boston (JTFGB) 2018 Alumnus
Student, Syracuse University

“JTFGB was the most amazing, inspiring, and engaging experience. Growing up immersed in the Jewish community, I was taught about tzedakah, always took the time to give back, knowing that it was ofcourse important, but never fully understanding the reasoning behind it. After participating in JTFGB, I understand the significance of tzedakah, the importance of giving, and why we, as Jews, practice this. I will use all of the resources, skills and learning I have been so blessed to take away from this experience in my future endeavors.”

Rabbi Tiferet Berenbaum, Rab`13 Finding

Rabbi Tiferet Berenbaum, Rab`13 found Judaism nearly a decade after she started practicing. She began observing Shabbat when she was 11 — because she thought it made sense to rest on Saturday and work or shop on Sundays — and she could never understand why her Catholic school teachers told Bible stories out of order. She also developed her own system of kashrut…

After several years leading Temple Har Zion in Mt. Holly, NJ, in the summer of 2019, she will return to the Boston area as Director of Congregational Learning and Programming at Temple Beth Zion (TBZ) in Brookline, MA.

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Michelle Black, Me'ah`14 Alumna

Alumna, Me’ah, Parenting Through a Jewish Lens, Open Circle Jewish Learning

“I have always been a avid learner. While in college, I remember noticing adults who chose to audit college-level courses and noted to myself that I wanted to be an ‘adult leader’ one day. Once I completed my formal schooling and started a family, I missed the intellectual stimulation. When Parenting Through a Jewish lens was offered through Hebrew College at Temple Beth Elohim [in Wellesley, MA], where my children were enrolled in preschool, I enthusiastically signed up. I wasn’t looking for Jewish content at the time.; I was drawn to the parenting curriculum. However, it was through this course that I was introduced to pearls of wisdom that could be found within our sacred Jewish texts — and I wanted to learn more. When the opportunity to enroll in Me’ah presented itself, I did not hesitate to join. I was eager to deepen my knowledge and understanding, not only of Torah and traditions, but also of our history and teachings from biblical times through today. Enrolling in 100 hours of college-level, curriculum-based learning was a gift that strengthened and reinforced my Jewish identity. I received a top-notch secular education and feel incredibly fortunate that I live in a community that values a top-notch Jewish education. Thank you CJP and Hebrew College for making Me’ah available to so many adults in Greater Boston. We are stronger and certainly more literate and enriched because of it.”