Sarit Horwitz has been learning, mentoring and teaching in Jewish settings for as long as she can remember. Ordained as a rabbi by the Jewish Theological Seminary on May 21, Rabbi Horwitz plans to keep on teaching, mentoring and learning for years to come.
Rabbi Horwitz is the daughter of Rabbi Daniel Horwitz, formerly of Congregation Ohev Sholom, and Tobi Cooper. She is now the senior rabbinic fellow at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in New York City, where she worked the past two years in an internship capacity. {mprestriction ids="1,3"}The newly ordained Conservative rabbi grew up in the Kansas City area, where she graduated from Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy in 2004. She said she learned a lot about the rabbinate during the time her father served as spiritual leader of Ohev Sholom. She believes being the daughter of a rabbi definitely had some bearing in her decision to become one herself.
“I watched him be a successful pulpit rabbi and understood the role that a rabbi can have in people’s lives,” Rabbi Sarit Horwitz said.
Rabbi Danny Horwitz said the Horwitz family is very proud of Sarit’s commitments and accomplishments.
“I don’t think of her as ‘following in my footsteps,’ but of her charting her own direction. Her rabbinate may be very different from my own but I am confident she will make a great contribution,” Rabbi Danny Horwitz said.
An article in the B’nai Jeshurun newsletter published when Rabbi Sarit Horwitz was hired explained that after she spent a year in Israel participating in the Nativ College Leadership Program, she moved to New York City where she graduated from Columbia University and JTS’ List College’s joint program with degrees in psychology and Midrash.
But it wasn’t until she moved to Chicago, serving as assistant to the head of school at The Chicago Jewish Day School, that Rabbi Horwitz realized her ambition to become a rabbi.
“I needed to be in a place where I wasn’t surrounded by rabbinical students anymore to see myself at the rabbinical school at JTS,” she said two years ago.
Before she started rabbinical school, Rabbi Horwitz was named a Wexner graduate fellow. The fellowships are awarded to 20 outstanding individuals each year who seek to prepare themselves through graduate training for careers in the cantorate, Jewish education, Jewish professional leadership, Jewish studies and the rabbinate.
Rabbi Horwitz, 29, said her reasons for becoming a rabbi have evolved and changed during the time she attended rabbinical school.
“From a professional standpoint, I wanted to teach and counsel people as well as contribute to community learning and community development and I thought a rabbinical degree would be pretty versatile. I could see myself working at a Hillel or a school or a shul,” she said in an interview with The Chronicle.
As she progressed through rabbinical school, she said she discovered that she was enjoying the various experiences and thriving in the areas of teaching and counseling. She began sharpening those skills at a variety of places before joining the staff at B’nai Jeshurun. She served as a chaplain at Bellevue Hospital, worked as a rabbinic intern at the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, and served as a rabbinic intern at Anshe Emet Synagogue in Chicago and Congregation Shir Chadash in New Orleans. She has also served as a rosh edah (unit head) at both Camp Ramah New England and Camp Ramah in Wisconsin.
As an intern at B’nai Jeshurun, Rabbi Horwitz worked with B’nai Mitzvah students and conversion students, teaching a yearlong Introduction to Judaism course and mentoring them one-on-one. She held other pulpit duties such as giving sermons. She was attracted to B’nai Jeshurun because of its growing popularity in the New York area.
“Something different happens at BJ,” she said when she began her internship. “They do something right. I want to learn what that is.”
One of the things that attracted Rabbi Horwitz to B’nai Jeshurun when she first came on board was the fact its spiritual leaders aren’t afraid to provoke deep and even difficult questions about what Judaism asks of us.
Now a full-time rabbi, Rabbi Horwitz said she was in the right place at the right time to be hired by B’nai Jeshurun. The congregation of approximately 1,700 families created a new full-time job for Rabbi Horwitz. She will spend two more years with the congregation, a nonaffiliated Jewish synagogue community founded in 1825 and described as a synagogue community that strives to experience God’s presence by praying, studying, teaching, volunteering, celebrating and caring for each other and our world. The congregation uses a traditional prayer book and welcomes Jews from every stream of Judaism.
As the senior rabbinic fellow, Rabbi Horwitz works with three other full-time rabbis on staff along with two student interns. Her duties have shifted and she will handle a lot of Shabbat and holiday programming as well as pulpit duties such as leading services and giving sermons. She will also teach.
“This is a great first opportunity out of rabbinical school,” she said.
So far, she believes she has made the correct choice to become a rabbi.
“The thing I love most is being with people at various points in their lives … their highs and their lows, and crafting ritual to make Judaism relevant at those points,” she said.{/mprestriction}