Campus Rabbi and Senior Jewish Educator

Penn Hillel

Role Overview

Make your mark on Jewish student life and leadership by joining Penn Hillel as the Campus Rabbi and Senior Jewish Educator. Entrepreneurial energy, Jewish passion, and highly developed logistical skills are keys to success in this position.  In addition, the Rabbi should exhibit creativity, the ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment, ability to take initiative, passion for teaching, interest in professional growth, and excellent interpersonal, communication, and leadership development skills.  The Rabbi must be capable of working both independently and as part of a team, and have the ability to prioritize and handle multiple assignments.

In the dynamic world of the college campus, students are asking important questions about their lives: who they want to be, how they want to live, and what is most important to them. Jewish tradition, simultaneously timeless and timely, offers insights to life’s universal questions as well as particular models for purposeful living.  Through deep and meaningful relationships, the Campus Rabbi will have the opportunity to mentor Jewish students as they explore their own answers to these questions, making a permanent impact on their lives, the Jewish people, and the world.

The rabbi position is part of Penn Hillel’s Center for Jewish Innovation’s Rabbinic Innovation Fellowship (RIF). The Fellowship is designed for the best and brightest rabbis in their first few years out of rabbinical school.  Goals of the program include helping rabbis begin their careers with a transformative professional experience focused on growth, training, and mentorship in ways that will enhance the Fellow’s capacity to lead and innovate in their future careers regardless of which area of rabbinic work they are interested in.

Components of the Rabbinic Innovation Fellowship:

1. Work on Campus:  The particular portfolio of work for the RIF will be customized based on the unique set of skills, interests, and goals of the professional. Work plans may include teaching, counseling and programmatic work with students, staffing of immersive experiences including Birthright Israel, participation in larger Penn Hillel team gatherings, and professional development
2. National Networking and National Prominence:  Penn Hillel and the Center for Jewish Innovation will help the RIF dramatically expand their professional network and national prominence. Fellows will have the chance to participate, lead, and teach sessions at Hillel International gatherings
3. Career Pathing of Rabbinic Fellows:  Mentors from the Jewish professional and for-profit sectors will help the Fellow chart out possible future career paths and help them gain the necessary experiences, relationships, and skills that will foster a career of deep meaning and high impact
4. Professional Development Curriculum:  Fellow will take part in a specially designed professional development curriculum that seeks to balance ongoing rabbinic identity formation with more technical leadership and innovation training   

What You’ll Do

• Build 180 personal relationships with students
• Serve as a thought partner and entrepreneurial leader to increase liberal Jewish life on campus
• Create new initiatives to serve the needs of students in real-time
• Develop and implement curriculum for weekly Jewish learning experiences
• Take ownership and responsibility for the Tzedek/Social justice sector of Penn Hillel
• Advise student leaders involved in religious life as well as education initiatives
• Serve as a rabbinic presence for staff and students
• Collaborate with other Hillel staff to help shape and develop the mission of Penn Hillel.
• Support and/or organize trips for students, including Birthright Israel and Alternative Break.  
• Attend staff meetings and participate in regular supervision with a direct supervisor.
• Other duties as assigned

What You’ll Bring to the Job

• Rabbinic Ordination from an egalitarian seminary
• Contagious Jewish passion
• Gifted relationship builder with students from a wide variety of backgrounds
• High degree of emotional intelligence
• Willingness and ability to go out and find students
• Natural entrepreneur and innovator
• Talent as compelling teacher
• Interest in students and student growth
• Interest in personal and professional growth

What You’ll Receive

• Competitive salary in the nonprofit marketplace, commensurate with experience and credentials. 
• A comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance, retirement plan, Life, AD&D and Long Term Disability (LTD) insurances, Flexible Spending accounts, generous vacation/sick time, and parental leave.
• Great professional development, mentoring, and skill building opportunities
• Travel regionally and abroad, particularly to Israel
• Plenty of Hillel swag and unlimited coffee/tea

About Penn Hillel

For more information on Penn Hillel and campus, check out the following websites: 
www.upenn.edu
www.pennhillel.org

Penn Hillel is affiliated with Hillel International. Hillel International enriches the lives of Jewish students so they may enrich the Jewish people and the world, and envisions a world where every student is inspired to make an enduring commitment to Jewish life, learning and Israel.