Campus Rabbi

Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale

Role Overview

Join the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale (Yale Hillel) as the Associate Jewish Chaplain to enrich the lives of students and shape Jewish life on campus. As an authentic Jewish role model, you will actively seek relationships with students less engaged with Jewish identity and will work to increase their involvement in and commitment to all aspects of Jewish life on campus. As the Associate Jewish Chaplain, you will strengthen the Slifka Center’s ability to serve Jewish students who identify as Reform, Reconstructionist, Renewal, unaffiliated and “Just Jewish.” Successful professionals in this role will use their depth of Jewish knowledge, love for education, and relationship-building skills to help students find meaning in making Judaism integral to their lives. The Associate Jewish Chaplain will join a staff team which is spearheaded by visionary leadership and playing a transformative role at a pivotal moment in the history of the Jewish community at Yale.

What You’ll Do

Jewish Education

• Develop and support vibrant Jewish experiences, small group learning, and educational programs - including cohort-based experiences and immersive trips.
• Pilot new educational approaches and initiatives on campus
• Participate actively in Slifka Center’s Student Facing Team, comprised of Rabbis from across
• denominations, as well as non-rabbinic colleagues focusing on student engagement and education. This is a pluralistic team that sets the tone for diversity throughout Yale’s Jewish life.

Student Health and Wellness

• Counsel students from diverse backgrounds in both chronic and acute pastoral need 
• Lead the development and execution of mental health and wellness programs through our brand-new Noah Wellness Center at Slifka Center
• Coordinate as appropriate with other Yale departments working in the Wellness space
• Maintain and expand our existing network of mental health and wellness resources outside of Slifka
• Center

Student Engagement

• Build relationships with approximately 180 students from diverse backgrounds through meaningful conversations that create pathways into Jewish life.
• Help lead a dynamic student engagement internship program - including recruitment, facilitation, and training.
• Identify the needs of currently underserved the Jewish communities on campus and develop strategies for supporting them with community organizing and outreach methods.

Spiritual leadership of the Reform Havurah

• Create vibrant ritual life, relevant Jewish educational opportunities and communities of shared values in which students that identify as Reform, Reconstructionist, Renewal, unaffiliated and “Just Jewish” are inspired to participate.
• Collaborate with University Chaplains and other campus partners on student-support, education, and interfaith work

What You’ve Accomplished

• Rabbinic ordination or an advanced degree in Jewish studies, Jewish education or a related field.
• Experience in community organizing, Hillel, youth movements, camping, or experiential Jewish education is a significant plus.
• Proven success in community building and outreach, and previous experience in program visioning and implementation.

What You’ll Bring to the Job

• A deep acquaintance with and love of Jewish tradition, ranging from traditional Jewish texts to contemporary Jewish wisdom, culture and unconventional Jewish sources.
• Expertise leading complex conversations about Judaism and Israel that students of diverse backgrounds, beliefs, and stages of Jewish identity formation find approachable.
• A commitment inclusive, vibrant, and pluralistic Jewish community.
• A personal identity as Reform or Reconstructionist Jewish life is preferred.
• An approachable, energetic, and fundamentally kind, personality with great emotional sensitivity.
• Pastoral experience is a plus
• A strong entrepreneurial spirit. Things may not always go according to plan, but you must be willing to take risks and learn from your wins as well as your losses.
• Confidence initiating and running programs, and comfort asking questions.
• Creative problem-solving, proactive communication, and collaboration.
• Ability to collaborate across teams both inside and outside of Hillel.
• Ability to staff 1-2 trips with students per academic year.

What You’ll Receive

• The salary range for this position is $90,000-$105,000, commensurate with experience
• A comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance, Group Supplemental Retirement Annuity (GSRA), pension plan, life insurance, Long Term Disability (LTD), Flexible Spending Plan, generous vacation/sick time, and parental leave. You also receive free meals at Slifka Center for you and your immediate family.
• Great professional development, mentoring, and skill building opportunities.
• Travel regionally and abroad, particularly to Israel.
• Connection to the Yale community, including relationships that will last long beyond your time working at Slifka

About Slifka Center

The 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, Slifka 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. 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 premier LGBTQ program), 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 as well as additional gathering spaces utilized by the Yale campus community. The building is currently undergoing a major renovation and is expected to reopen in early Fall 2021.

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. Residential communities range from modern high-rise apartments to lovely old houses on tree-lined streets that lead to campus, shops, restaurants, hiking trails, beaches and more. 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 currently has 11,000 Jewish households, many of whom participate in the array of activities which Slifka Center provides.

About Hillel International

In 1923, Rabbi Benjamin Frankel started Hillel with humble means, a noble mission and a breathtaking vision: to convey Jewish civilization to a new generation. Today, Hillel International continues to enrich the lives of Jewish students and is the largest Jewish campus organization in the world at more than 550 colleges and universities across North America and around the world. As Hillel evolves as an organization, the mission remains steadfast: to create lasting connections with students that foster an enduring commitment to Jewish life, learning, and Israel and train them to become the next Jewish leaders.

Slifka Center 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.

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