Summer Residency Program Brings Rabbinical Students to Congregations in the Midwest and the South

"The experience that I gained during this summer was like no other I could have gotten while at school," said third-year rabbinical student Jules Ilian, giving voice to a sentiment shared by the other Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion students who participated in this year's Summer Residency program, which pairs students with rabbinic mentors at synagogues in the Midwest and South.

Ilian says her residency with Rabbi Sharyn Henry '88 at Rodef Shalom Congregation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, allowed her to gain practical experience with a range of rabbinic duties, including co-officiating two funerals and co-leading a shiva minyan, and consulting with conversion students.

That practical work also made a big difference to fourth-year rabbinical student Deborah Bell, who did her residency with Rabbi Asher Knight '07 at Temple Beth El (TBE) in Charlotte, North Carolina. Given her own academic background, Bell has enjoyed the many opportunities to study and teach Torah in her first three years at HUC-JIR. She sought out the summer residency program because she recognized that "it was time to increase my pastoral and on-the-ground experience."

In the course of the summer, Bell said, she shadowed the TBE clergy team "through almost every life cycle event including funeral intakes, funeral services, grief counseling, baby namings, conversion ceremonies, and b'nei mitzvah." In addition to shadowing and observing, she was given opportunities to lead services, teach Torah study, and play an active role in several life-cycle events. She also attended all weekly staff, leadership, and clergy team meetings as well as a board retreat. "This access allowed me to experience first-hand the organizational and operational inner workings, challenges and opportunities of a synagogue, in this case a large congregation that has over 1000 families and is growing."

Fifth-year rabbinical student Ora Jacobsen spent the summer in Louisiana at the Unified Jewish Congregation of Baton Rouge (UJCBR). She said the residency with Rabbi Sarah Smiley '10 allowed her a unique chance to "spend focused time with a mentor." She added that the program also gave her an "opportunity to experience southern Jewish life."

Jacobsen said one especially significant experience was visiting the Union for Reform Judaism's (URJ) Jacobs Camp in Mississippi while Rabbi Smiley was faculty-in-residence. "Since I became Jewish in adulthood, I have had no experience with Jewish childhood and the magic of URJ camps. It was important for me to see the impact of Jewish camping, especially for children in the South," she said. "Camp creates a joy of being with other Jewish children that is often impossible in pockets of the country where they might be the only Jewish family in town."

Ilian said the residency program's emphasis on Jewish communities away from the coasts exposes students to important regional perspectives. "I have learned so much about Jewish life outside of New York," said Ilian, who studies at HUC-JIR's Manhattan campus. In Pittsburgh, she said, she "heard multiple people this summer express concern about where the next generation of clergy will come from."

"I believe that by my being there as the rabbinic intern, some of the people who worried that they would be passed over for clergy in the future, felt reassured by my presence that they would not. Instead, seeing that an internship prioritized sending students from the Northeast to learn in the Midwest was reassuring that there would be another generation of clergy eager to work in the Midwest," Ilian said.

"One of the intriguing elements of the rabbinate and cantorate is that if you are open to it, the possibilities of where a rabbi or cantor might serve are virtually endless. Hebrew Union College has a long history of serving communities all across this country, and this Summer Residency program enables our students to experience what our congregations in the South and Midwest have to offer," said Rabbi Michele Lenke, DMin ('96, '20), National Rabbinic Fieldwork Coordinator.

"The ability to provide a diversity of educational and experiential opportunities for our students is something in which we take great pride, and to hear the excitement of our students who have participated in this program, reinforces the goal of preparing our students to serve anywhere they are called," Lenke said.

The program is supported by Rabbi Jack Romberg, ordained at HUC-JIR in 2001, who retired as the rabbi of Temple Israel in Tallahassee, Florida in 2019. He decided to invest in the Summer Residency initiative because of his own his experience working part-time for three years, often in the summer, at a Virginia congregation that didn't have a full-time rabbi, which enabled him to get valuable experience teaching kids preparing for bar or bat mitzvahs, and often leading the congregation on Shabbat and certain holidays.

"It is very important to support this program now, as there are fewer opportunities for students to work in small congregations - especially in the South and Central region of the country - and for students to work there during most of the year," Romberg said. "There are things students can do during the summer for congregations, as well as learning about the things that congregations need from rabbis."

The members of this year's cohort agree that the program gives participants invaluable experiences, in places where they might not otherwise get an opportunity to work. After completing her residency in Charlotte, Deborah Bell described the program as "one of the most important and transformational growth opportunities I have had thus far on my path to the rabbinate."

Her fellow cohort member Jules Ilian said, "having the opportunity to be in Pittsburgh, learning with incredible clergy will forever influence my career."

As for Ora Jacobsen, she had this takeaway after her time in Louisiana and Mississippi: "Reform rabbis can change lives. As I approach ordination, I aim to be a steward of Jewish joy, now with fuller confidence from my experiences this summer."

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