It’s a busy time for Rabbi Elana Nemitoff. On Mother’s Day she was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). On Father’s Day she will get married. Then on July 1 she will begin serving as rabbi/educator at Temple Israel in Westport, Connecticut, a 70-year-old congregation with approximately 800 member families.
The daughter of Leslie and Rabbi Arthur Nemitoff, the newest Rabbi Nemitoff was confirmed at The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah, the Reform congregation her father has served since 2003. He estimates his daughter joins a group of 18 to 20 children of the congregation, including him, who have become rabbis.
Rabbi Elana Nemitoff’s journey to the rabbinate began when she was accepted to HUC-JIR in 2012 and moved to Jerusalem for her first year of school that summer. She discovered she enjoyed living in Jerusalem and wasn’t ready to leave the Jewish state at the conclusion of her initial year of study, so she took a leave of absence from school.
During that gap year, Rabbi Nemitoff learned at a midrasha — an intensive learning environment for women that can be compared with a yeshiva for men. She also worked with special needs children.
“I already loved working with special needs kids, but I really learned how to love from these kids,” she said. “They loved wholeheartedly and with their whole soul. It was absolutely spectacular for me, and it was a great way to work on my Hebrew because the kids wouldn’t respond until I got the grammar right.”
Both experiences solidified her desire to become a rabbi, but now she also wanted to get a master’s degree in Jewish education.
“Something just clicked for me, and I realized that I would not be doing myself any favors if I didn’t continue along this path and I didn’t try to get a master’s in Jewish education as well. So I did,” said the young rabbi, who earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology with minors in technical theater and Jewish studies in May 2012 from Washington University in St. Louis.
When she resumed her rabbinical studies, it was at HUC-JIR’s Los Angeles campus. During that time she discovered she takes “great pleasure” in studying Jewish texts.
“I loved delving into texts and arguing the minutia of what a specific piece of Talmud might say and doing it with classmates who understand me so well that we have our own shorthand for how we talk about it,” she explained.
Rabbinical school gave the young Rabbi Nemitoff the opportunity to meet “people with incredible minds,” whether they were her teachers, classmates or students.
“I am honored to know that I have gained wisdom from all those around me and hope that I can bring that into the world.”
She called her year getting her master’s in the HUC-JIR’s Rhea Hirsch School of Education the single most spectacular year of her school career.
“It’s all about process, so it’s learning how we process so we can be the best educational leaders we can be and that was incredibly powerful.”
Now that she is heading into the real world as a working rabbi, she is excited about her chance to affect change in the Jewish community, something that is “incredibly important” to her.
“I have seen the impact that a rabbi can have on an individual life and that, for me, is of upmost importance,” she said, adding that she wanted to be able to be there for people in their times of joy and pain.
“I think knowing that I can be there is what offers the power of the rabbinate and also the responsibility of it.”
She went on to explain the power of the rabbinate is to “impact people lives.”
“We travel with them on the journey of life and we provide guidance along that journey at those moments. We have power in a positive way.”
With that power, she said, comes responsibility.
“If we don’t handle someone’s life kindly, we can also impact them very negatively. We have the responsibility to hold the lives that we are touching in our hands, to hold them with gentleness and honor.”
As a rabbi, she is looking forward to helping individuals “find the joy of doing something for themselves in their own path and in their own way.”
“I like to think of a rabbi as someone who helps shape a Jewish journey, and my hope is that I can help shape those journeys and be a guide along the way.”
Rabbi Nemitoff said it’s been both a blessing and a curse having a father who is a rabbi while she’s been on this path. The blessing has been having someone she can talk the tools of the trade with and who can help guide her in things such as planning a wedding or a baby naming.
The challenge for both, she said, has been learning when it’s OK to discuss something and when it’s OK to “let it go.”
“I know he wants to be involved and he wants to be a part of it because it’s exciting that I’m doing the things he did so many years ago,” she said, adding she’s proud to be the daughter of a rabbi.
“I know what I’m getting into and that helps a lot.”
It thrills Rabbi Arthur Nemitoff to hear his daughter called rabbi, he said.
“Just listening to you say it brings tears to my eyes,” he said. “It’s one of the most remarkable feelings to have. I don’t know if it’s similar to someone whose child becomes a doctor or a teacher after them or goes in the family business, but there is something about this calling, and I really do believe it is a calling, that is so all-encompassing in terms of your identity, in terms of the way you live your life, in terms of where your life goes.”
The proud father said he has known from the time his daughter was born there was something special about her.
“It doesn’t mean I love my son any less, but there’s something about her soul that has been different and special from the time she was a little baby, and this is what it was always meant to be.”
At HUC-JIR’s Los Angeles campus, each person being ordained chooses a sponsor to speak at the ceremony, and the soon-to-be-official Rabbi Elana Nemitoff chose her father. He said these words to her in front of the congregation, then walked with her to the ark where she was ordained by the HUC-JIR provost:
“Before you were born and named Elana Rose Nemitoff, your mother and I called you, ‘nefesh,’ soul. Little did we know how accurate we were with that label. It was your nefesh that has led you on the journey that brings you to this place, at this time. Yours is a nefesh of caring, searching, struggling, stretching. Yours is a nefesh that drinks deeply from the well of Judaism and a nefesh that nourishes those who are vulnerable and impressionable. Yours is a nefesh of a rabbi. Your nefesh and your name become one today, as you lead the Jewish people as Rabbi Elana Rose Nemitoff.”
As his daughter embarks on the same career path he chose 38 years ago, Rabbi Arthur Nemitoff has three pieces of advice for her, he said:
“First, be true to yourself as to how you live your Jewish life. Second, recognize that you are serving the Jewish people and as such their needs may be different than yours.”
The third is a piece of advice he received when he became a rabbi.
“Find your one sermon. Every rabbi has a sermon. There are variations on a theme but there’s always one sermon, and I hope my daughter discovers what her one sermon is.”
As Rabbi Elana Nemitoff prepares to begin her career in Connecticut, she looks back at how the Kansas City Jewish community provided “a foundational bedrock” for her Jewish life and has helped her get to where she is today.
“It gave me a real understanding of what Jewish community looks like across denominational boundaries,” she said, “It also instilled within me a passion for recognizing the power of working through all the denominations and bringing people together as people and not just because they are Reform, Conservative, Orthodox or other denominations. That was demonstrated to me in Los Angeles, but I would say I firmly understood that from my roots in Kansas City.”