Slifka Center searching for next Jewish Chaplain
Following Rabbi Jason Rubenstein’s decision to accept the position of Executive Director at Harvard Hillel, Slifka is still searching to fill the chaplaincy position.
Yale Daily News
The Slifka Center at Yale is currently searching to fill the role of Howard M. Holtzmann Jewish Chaplain.
In an email to the Slifka community last semester, Rabbi Jason Rubenstein announced his decision to leave Yale after six years as Jewish chaplain. Rubenstein, an alumnus of Harvard, emphasized his desire to rejoin the Harvard Jewish community as the Executive Director of Harvard Hillel in the months after Oct. 7, 2023.
“I have felt compelled to (re)join Harvard’s Jews because of, and not despite, the urgency of this moment, and their widely publicized travails — first and foremost for the welfare of Harvard’s Jews and Jewish community, and also because of what a flourishing Jewish community (or, God forbid, lack thereof) there means for the Jewish people at large,” Rubenstein wrote in an email to the Slifka community last semester.
According to the job description obtained by the News, the Howard M. Holtzmann Chaplain serves as a senior rabbi to the Yale community, combining teaching, community leadership, pastoral care and day-to-day work with students and faculty. They engage students in building a rich and pluralistic community through serving as a senior leader, scholar and teacher. They also represent the Slifka Center to the Yale Religious Ministries and the University Chaplain’s Office and serve as a key interlocutor for the diverse religious and spiritual communities around Yale.
Since his decision to leave, Slifka has set up a search committee led by Yishai Schwartz ’13. Although the committee had hoped to fill the position for the fall, they decided that none of the candidates were the “correct fit for the role we had envisioned, and recommended that Slifka not fill the Holtzmann Chaplain position at this time,” according to a July email from Uri Cohen, executive director of Slifka.
In the meantime, leadership of student life is being led by Associate Chaplain Rachel Leiken and Rabbi Alex Ozar GRD ’22. Ozar has been at Slifka since 2018 as co-director of the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus at Yale and added an expanded pan-communal role with the title Campus Rabbi. Both will continue to provide pastoral care and leadership to the community at large.
Cohen emphasized his faith in the current leadership despite the lack of a designated chaplain.
“Our Student Life Team is in great hands, and we look forward to strengthening the team further in the months ahead. We have had an extraordinary start to the semester, seeing record-breaking attendance at our Shabbat dinners and other programs,” Cohen wrote to the News.
According to Lia Solomon ’24, a member of the search committee and former co-president of the Hillel Student Board, the committee does not have an exact timeline to fill the position. She feels that it is important to take time to find the right person to lead in the role.
“The right person for the Slifka community is someone who is deeply committed to pluralism and to creating relationships with all Jews on Yale’s campus. As an alumna of such a vibrant pluralistic community, I am excited about finding that,” Solomon wrote to the News.
Cohen echoed Solomon’s sentiments, writing that “the goal of the whole process is to find the right combination of candidates and skills.”
The inaugural Howard M. Holtzmann Chaplain was Rabbi James Ponet ’68, who returned to Yale for the role in 1981.