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CBST
Home
| Cooperberg-Rittmaster Rabbinical
Internship Program |
By the 1990s, GLBT
synagogues and havurot were an established--if sometimes controversial--feature
of the American Jewish landscape. Out Jews were officially
welcomed--albeit still with some reservations--by the Reform,
Reconstructionist, and Conservative movements. In 1985, New
York's Beth Am Synagogue began an aggressive outreach program
for GLBT congregants, and other liberal urban synagogues
soon followed suit. But there was there was still no GLBT-oriented
rabbinical training, and out rabbis were still relatively rare--GLBT
synagogues were hiring heterosexual as well as GLBT
rabbis. The result was a daunting "on-the-job training"
that was often difficult for the rabbis as well as their GLBT
congregants, all the more so in the face of the acute and unique
demands for pastoral care resulting from the AIDS epidemic in
the GLBT community.
In 1994, a gift by William Fern (renewed in 2000) in honor of
fellow long-time CBST members and gay activists Irving Cooperberg,
z''l, and Louis Rittmaster enabled CBST to establish the first
rabbinical internships at a GLBT synagogue. Now in its eighth year,
the CBST Cooperberg-Rittmaster Rabbinical Internship program
brings two students to CBST each academic year. They work directly
under the supervision of Rabbi Kleinbaum and Rabbi Cohen, supporting
CBST's diverse minyanim, leading services, preparing drashot
(sermons), teaching in CBST's Lehrhaus Judaica adult education
program, providing pastoral counseling to CBST's members, and
generally assisting with the operation of the synagogue.
Cooperberg-Rittmaster Rabbinical Interns are selected without
regard to gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, or movement
affiliation (CBST itself is unaffiliated), and have included
gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender and heterosexual interns, ranging
in age from mid-twenties to mid-forties, from all varieties
of Jewish backgrounds--a diversity comparable to the diversity
of CBST itself. Upon ordination, they carry their unique--and
intense!--CBST experience to their work as congregational rabbis,
chaplains, counselors, and community and social activists throughout
the United States. CBST's Associate Rabbi, Rabbi Ayelet S. Cohen,
was twice a Cooperberg-Rittmaster Rabbinical Intern herself.
The Cooperberg-Rittmaster Rabbinical Internships have also been
highly successful in terms of the contributions made by the
interns to the life of the synagogue, the impact of the experience
on the interns' careers, and the number--20 to date--of rabbis
the program has delivered to the Jewish community who are able
to deal positively with the needs of GLBT congregants and who
have experienced the potential of the liberal synagogue to be
a dynamic center of an intensely Jewish way of life. |
Melissa Simon
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
Melissa is Congregation Beth Simchat Torah’s Children Educator for the second year and a fourth year rabbinical student.
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Cecilia Beyer
Jewish Theological Seminary
Cecilia is a fourth year rabbinical student. |
Ben Davis
Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
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Rachel Weiss
Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
Rachel was also a Cooperberg-Rittmaster Rabbinical Intern in 2006/07. |
Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster
Jewish Theological Seminary, '07
Associate Director of Education and Outreach at Rabbis for Human Rights in Massachusetts.
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Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
Rachel will be returning as a Cooperberg-Rittmaster Rabbinical Intern for 2007/08. |
Rabbi Darby Jared Leigh
Reconstrutionist Rabbinical College, '08
Darby was also Cooperberg-Rittmaster Rabbinical Intern in 2004/05.
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Reuben Zellman
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
Reuben is currently the rabbinical intern at Congregation Shahar Zahav in San Francisco. |
Rabbi Ruth
Gelfarb
Hebrew
Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, '07
Rabbi Gelfarb is the Director of Service for the American Jewish World Service in New York. |
Rabbi Darby
Jared Leigh
Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College, '08
Darby is currently the student rabbi at the Ottawa Reconstructionist Havurah in Ottawa Canada and is also working as a Rabbinic Educator for Hillel at Temple and Drexel Universities in Philadelphia. Darby also has one more semester to serve as president of the Reconstructionist Student Association, RSA |
Rabbi Lauren
Grabelle Herrmann
Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College, '06
Rabbi Grabelle Herrmann founded Kol Tzedek, a Reconstructionist Synagogue in West Philadelphia. |
Rabbi Michael
Rothbaum
Academy
of Jewish Religion, '06
Rabbi Rothbaum is Director of Programming for Hillels of Westchester, serving Sarah Lawrence College and Purchase College. He currently resides in Nyack, NY.
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Rabbi Ryan
Dulkin
Jewish
Theological Seminary, '04
Rabbi Dulkin is a PhD student in Midrash at JTS |
Rabbi
Darren Levine
Hebrew
Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, 03
Rabbi Levine is the Executive Director of Jewish Community Project Downtown in New York City. |
Rabbi
Ayelet S. Cohen
Jewish
Theological Seminary
Rabbi Cohen
was also Cooperberg-Rittmaster Rabbinical Intern in 2000/01. |
Rabbi
Tracy Nathan
Jewish
Theological Seminary, '03
Rabbi Nathan is currently teaching at Solomon Schechter Day School of Great Boston (in Newton) |
Rabbi
Ayelet S. Cohen
Jewish
Theological Seminary, '02
Rabbi Cohen
is CBST's Associate Rabbi. |
Rabbi
David Dunn Bauer
Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College, 03
Rabbi Bauer
is rabbi at Jewish Community of Amherst, Massachusetts. |
Rabbi
Rachel Gartner
Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College, '02
Rabbi Gartner is Assistant Rabbi at Congregation Bnei Keshet in Montclair, NJ. |
Rabbi
Mychal Copeland
Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College, '00
Rabbi Copeland is the rabbi at Hillel at Stanford University, Stanford, California. |
Rabbi
Edythe Held-Mencher
Hebrew
Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, '99
Rabbi Mencher is the Associate Director of the Department of Jewish Family Concerns at the Union for Reform Judaism, New York City. |
Rabbi
Roderick Young
Rabbi Young
was also a Cooperberg-Rittmaster Rabbinical Intern in 1996/97 |
Rabbi
Elisa Goldberg
Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College, '99
Rabbi Goldberg is Director of Jewish Chaplaincy and Healing Program of Jewish Family and Children Services of Philadelphia. |
Rabbi
Daniel Judson
Hebrew
Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, '98
Rabbi Judson is the rabbi at Temple Beth David in Canton, MA. |
Rabbi
Roderick Young
Hebrew
Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, '99
Rabbi Young was Assistant Rabbi at CBST from August 1999 - July 2002. Rabbi Young is living in London and is Rabbi at West London Synagogue. He will become the Principal Rabbi of Finchley Reform Synagogue in November 2006. |
Rabbi
Joshua Lesser
Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College, '99
Rabbi Lesser is the rabbi at Beth Haverim, A Reconstructionist Synagogue Founded For Lesbians and Gay Men, Embracing All Jews and Loved Ones in Atlanta, GA. |
Rabbi
Sara Paasche-Orlow
Jewish
Theological Seminary, '96
Rabbi Paasche-Orlow is Director of Religious Services at Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for Aged in Roslindale, MA. |
Rabbi
Lina Grazier-Zerbarini
Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College, '97
Rabbi Zerbarini is Associate Rabbi at Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale University. |
Rabbi
David Steinberg
Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College, '97
Rabbi Steinberg is the Associate Rabbi at Ohavi Zedek Synagogue in Vermont. In addition he serves as co-director of Vermont Chai School. |
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