T’ruah Summer Fellows

By Natasha Mayer

This morning, JWFNY staff had the honor of attending a breakfast to meet T’ruah’s 2019 Summer Rabbinic Fellows. Rabbi Jill Jacobs, T’ruah’s Executive Director, shared with us how the program trains rabbinical and cantorial students across denominations in using their platforms to become human rights leaders in their communities. Each fellow is placed with a local social justice organization three days each week and spends the rest of their time participating in workshops with T’ruah on topics including media training, intersectional identities, and social justice sermon writing. Just six fellows were chosen out of a large and competitive pool of applicants.

One fellow, Phoebe Ana Rabinowitsch, is a student at Yeshivat Maharat, a JWFNY partner which ordains women to become rabbis in the Orthodox community. Phoebe Ana’s placement through T’ruah is with New Sanctuary Coalition, which serves asylum seekers. She expressedhow in a time when people feel powerless facing challenges in our current climate, T’ruah and New Sanctuary Coalition have helped her feel empowered to do something to help communities in need. This is a sentiment that all of the fellows share. JWFNY is proud to support T’ruah in their mission to train the next generation of human rights leaders in the Jewish community.