Assistant Campus Rabbi

Role Overview

The Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale (Yale’s Hillel) is seeking a visionary educational and spiritual leader who will inspire and support our students through teaching, pastoral care, community leadership, and one-on-one engagement. We seek candidates for this role who possess Rabbinic ordination and who identify with (and have been a part of) the Conservative or Reform movements. This is one of two new Rabbinic positions we are hiring for in this cycle. This Assistant Campus Rabbi and our new Campus Rabbi [insert link to that job description here] will join our Student Life Team alongside our incumbent Campus Rabbi (who holds Orthodox ordination), our Associate Chaplain, and the rest of our Student Life Team. As a group, our intention is that our Rabbis will serve complementary prayer communities.

In this Assistant Campus Rabbi role, you will work with our Student Life Team to further strengthen our rich, pluralistic community by embracing Jewish students from every background, while also serving as spiritual leader of either Slifka’s Reform or traditional Egalitarian minyan, depending on best fit. As an authentic Jewish teacher, you will inspire, empower, and guide the Jewish students at Yale so they will actively engage in the process of building and sustaining vibrant, meaningful, and pluralistic Jewish campus communities. You will bring a welcoming and energetic spirit to engaging with every student you meet. You will empower, and guide Jewish students in strengthening a vibrant, meaningful, and pluralistic Jewish campus community, and inspire students to deepen their commitment to Jewish ideas, values, texts, and peoplehood. The Assistant Campus Rabbi will work in intensive partnership across our deeply collaborative team, under the supervision of our Student Life Team co-leaders, Associate Chaplain Rachel Leiken and Campus Rabbi and Senior Scholar Rabbi Alex Ozar.

What You’ll Do

• Proactively engage with Jewish students across Yale, building relationships with as many as possible.
• Be the “first person” to reach out to students you haven’t met as a matter of course.
• Steward individual student Jewish journeys.
• Fiercely champion pluralistic culture in which deep friendship, study, debate, and a sense of shared Jewish peoplehood flourishes across denominational, political, and other differences.
• Inspire love for and commitment to Jewish texts, tradition, and Israel.
• Serve as spiritual leader, mentor, and primary staff support to Slifka’s Reform OR traditional Egalitarian minyan.
• Work with other Jewish student sub-communities.
• Bring dynamism and a deep knowledge of and love for Torah to every interaction.
• Serve as a visible campus presence and a Jewish role model.
• Embrace teamwork with Rabbinic colleagues, the Student Life Team, and the entire Slifka Center professional team.
• Listen carefully to student needs and interests.
• Bring creativity to problem solving.
• Pursue and deepen multi-faith, cross-cultural, and interfaith initiatives through and beyond participation in Yale Religious Ministries.

What You’ll Bring to the Job

• A passion for and proven track-record of being outgoing, warm, and welcoming to everyone you meet.
• Strong knowledge of traditional Jewish texts, as well as contemporary Jewish wisdom, culture, and unconventional Jewish sources.
• The ability to provide context, history, and nuance to push student thinking beyond current limits.
• Expertise in leading complex conversations about Judaism and Israel in a way that is approachable, appropriate to where individual students are in their own Jewish journeys, and that deepens a student’s Jewish commitments.
• A commitment to creating an inclusive, vibrant, and pluralistic Jewish community.
• Deep love for the Jewish people and Israel, and a vision for inspiring these dual loves in the next generation.

Qualifications

• 0-5 years of Rabbinic work experience. Recent or impending rabbinical school graduates are encouraged to apply!
• Rabbinic ordination (past or expected by May 2025) from an accredited non-Orthodox institution and a commitment to a pluralistic approach to Jewish life.
• Previous rabbinic experience in Jewish camps, youth groups or interfaith work is an advantage but is not required.
• A commitment to living in proximity to Yale’s campus and participating regularly in campus Jewish life.
• An unapologetic commitment to both an inclusive and pluralistic Jewish community and a strong and vibrant Israel.
• Demonstrated ability to relate to emerging adults.
• Training and experience in pastoral care and counseling.
• Clear and effective verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to work flexible hours, including some nights, many (but not all) Shabbatot, and holidays.
• A team-oriented approach and strong work ethic.

We are looking for the most inspirational rabbinic leaders to serve this extraordinary community. If you feel that is you, but you do not meet every qualification listed in this job posting, we encourage you to apply!

What You’ll Receive

• Competitive salary commensurate with experience, ranging from $95,000 to $110,000. (However, if this range is not in line with your expectations, we are open to having a conversation with you.)
• Comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance, a 403(b) retirement plan, life insurance, long-term disability (LTD), vacation/sick time, and parental leave.
• Great professional development, mentoring, and skill-building opportunities at Yale and with the Hillel movement.
• Opportunities to attend global conferences and travel regionally and abroad.
• Access to events and amenities as members of the Yale community.

About the Slifka Center

Slifka Center is a self-supporting non-profit that serves more than 1,400 Yale undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty, staff, and members of the greater New Haven community. Located at 80 Wall Street, in the heart of Yale University’s campus, the Slifka Center provides a warm, welcoming, and diverse Jewish environment in which students and other members of the university community can connect socially, culturally, intellectually, and spiritually. The Slifka Center is the home to Yale Hillel which hosts multiple minyanim and communities of students with diverse interests including Magevet (Yale’s Jewish a cappella group), Shibboleth (Yale’s undergraduate journal of Jewish thought), W{Holy} Queer (Yale’s religious LGBTQ program run in partnership with other campus organizations), Yale Friends of Israel, Jewish service and social justice programs, as well as other student groups. For more information see www.slifkacenter.org.

The Slifka Center contains the only kosher dining hall on campus, which serves as a focal point for student life within and beyond the Jewish community and a meeting place for students, faculty and community members alike. In addition to the kosher kitchen, the facility also features a chapel, a library, a Beit Midrash, an art gallery, as well as additional gathering spaces utilized by the Yale campus community.

The Slifka Center is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to creating an accepting and inclusive environment for all.

About New Haven

Now Connecticut’s second largest city with a population of nearly 130,000, New Haven, the nation’s first planned city, sits on the coast midway between New York and Boston. The central town square, established in 1640 and located across the street from Old Campus (Yale’s “front door”) and a block away from Slifka Center, hosts many summer concerts and other events. A wealth of museums, theaters, and Yale’s architecture-style Gothic academic buildings are all woven into the fabric of the city, which stretches for 20 square miles and is picturesquely surrounded by the red bluffs of East and West Rock. Famed for its intellectual life, sports, cuisine, theater and music, New Haven expands each summer with the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, a 15-day festival of performing arts, lectures, and conversations that celebrates the greatest artists and thinkers from around the world. New Haven has had a significant Jewish presence since 1758 and continues to host a thriving Jewish community with several synagogues and kosher restaurants and close connections with Yale and the Slifka Center.

Timeline and Contact Info

Our hope is to have someone in this role to start the 2025-2026 academic year.

If you have questions, please contact Rabbi Jake Rubin, Associate Vice President of Talent Acquisition and Strategy at Hillel International ([email protected]).