Teaching Depth and Courage: Rabbanut North America Welcomes Second Cohort of Future Rabbis

For most of Jewish history, our People’s most essential leaders have been rabbis. They have been gatekeepers to Jewish communities, curators and custodians of the Jewish tradition, and the ongoing architects of what Judaism means for every generation of Jews.

Rabbanut North America is the Shalom Hartman Institute’s answer to the call for a new rabbinate—grounded in pluralism, textual mastery, and moral aspiration. Launched in 2024 as a dynamic model to both recruit rabbis and develop them, the three-year ordination program welcomed 13 individuals into its first cohort.

Cohort II launched earlier this year with 16 individuals, ranging from early- to senior-career professionals, public intellectuals, and global service leaders, alongside senior Jewish educators and institutional leaders. These future rabbis receive training in the Jewish texts, ideas, and skills they need to lead the North American Jewish community through the challenges of 21st-century Jewish life, Israel, and Jewish peoplehood. Following their first in-person gathering in New York, new cohort members reflected on their initial learning in the program:

We were introduced to a very sophisticated balance between the program as a shared journey and
a sense of solidarity among the cohort, along with an encouragement for each individual to pursue and develop their own path and coherence. – Faustine Sigal, Strategic Advisor to PJ Library and Content Advisor for HBO France for “La Rabbine” (aired on HBO in North America as “Reformed”)

I was fascinated by the deep dive into the history and texts about the evolution of the concept of the rabbi and the notion of rabbinic leadership. – Elan Kogutt, Senior Fellow at the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Collaboratory at Harvard Kennedy School

I found the [opening retreat] helpful for naming the ways that we both already know how to lead because of our professional experience, and that learning Torah has work to do in us. I loved the question [we were asked], “What does it look like when Torah succeeds?” I will keep asking that framing question. It’s such a core question for me and I loved getting to explore it with others. – Bethany Slater, Executive Director of Claremont Hillel

Through leadership retreats, private spiritual direction, summer residencies in Jerusalem, mentorships, and ongoing coursework, the program cultivates rabbis who will engage with thought leadership, ethical clarity, and textual mastery. Already from the first two cohorts, it’s clear that this program is attracting new people to the profession who want to build their skills to become cutting-edge rabbis, fully equipped to lead communities and institutions.

The students drawn to Rabbanut North America reflect the “untapped well” of future rabbis: medical doctors and psychologists; law professors and Ivy League academics; technologists and humanitarian workers. Their presence widens our understanding of rabbinic leadership itself. What has struck me most is not the structural innovations, but the effect of bringing together genuinely pluralistic cohorts and treating their ideological and developmental differences as part of their formation. Students describe learning to inhabit tension, not resolve it, as one of the most transformative aspects of their development. – Rabbi Jesse Paikin, Director, Rabbanut North America

At a moment when Jewish communities are asking more of their rabbis than ever before, Rabbanut North America is a timely, even prescient, response to shape a renewed rabbinate. Together with graduates of Rabbanut Yisraelit – Hartman’s Beit Midrash for Israeli Rabbis – Rabbanut North America graduates will join a growing, pluralistic rabbinate committed to intellectual openness, ethical seriousness, and responsibility for the Jewish people.

Learn more about Rabbanut North America and its cohort I and II members. The Jim Joseph Foundation is a funder of the program.