Overview
Sinai Synagogue seeks an interim or full-time pulpit rabbi to replace our current rabbi, who is retiring after 30 years. This position is a wonderful opportunity for a rabbi who wants to join and lead a passionate, tight-knit congregation with a high degree of member involvement. We are eager to support a caring, wise, and flexible leader who is also a good listener—somebody who is excited about helping to shepherd our diverse, engaged community. While a majority of our congregants identify as Conservative, reflecting our synagogue’s historical affiliation with the Conservative movement, some members identify as Reform, Reconstructionist, Renewal, Traditional, nondenominational, secular, and “just Jewish,” and the personal characteristics and values of our new rabbi are more important to us than any particular denominational affiliation.
We look forward to collaborating with a rabbi who shares our values of inclusion and heartfelt practice and is excited about leading a nonjudgmental “big-tent” community: a congregation of people drawn to Judaism—with a range of backgrounds and practices—who feel that they truly belong, and where everybody has the opportunity to deepen their engagement with our traditions.
The principal duties of this job include:
Coordinate Shabbat morning and holiday services, including lay leader involvement, and lead portions of the service; read the weekly Torah portion and the haftarah in collaboration with members; offer engaging divrei Torah
Attend weekday minyan and lead portions of the service in consultation with lay minyan coordinators
Conduct life cycle events for community members and provide pastoral care
Support religious school, prepare children for b’mitzvahs, develop adult education offerings, instruct potential converts to Judaism and help them complete the conversion process
Located 90 minutes east of Chicago and 45 minutes from the beautiful beaches of Lake Michigan, South Bend is a diverse, midsize city that is home to six colleges and universities, including the University of Notre Dame, and serves as the economic and cultural hub of a metropolitan area that spans north-central Indiana and southwest Michigan. South Bend was named to U.S. News & World Report’s 2024 list of the 25 “Best Places to Live in the U.S.” for its affordability—the country’s fourth most affordable city over 100,000 people, according to Niche.com—and its abundant cultural and recreational opportunities.
The South Bend area is home to six synagogues: In addition to Sinai, there is a Reform temple, an unaffiliated liberal congregation, two Orthodox congregations, and a Chabad. Because of the city’s sizable Orthodox community, we have a PK–8 day school, a kosher grocery store downtown, a kosher caterer, and several kosher takeout options. The St. Joseph Valley Jewish Federation organizes regular community-wide events, summer camps for local children, and an annual Jewish film festival.
See position description.
Will Turbow, President of the Sinai Synagogue Board of Directors, wturbow@gmail.com
About Sinai Synagogue
Sinai Synagogue is a diverse, multigenerational, egalitarian synagogue in the culturally rich college town of South Bend, Indiana. Members describe Sinai as a family, and we are proud of our genuinely warm, inclusive, and accepting community.
We maintain a twice-daily minyan, full Shabbat services every Saturday morning followed by a kiddush lunch, an extensive and ever-growing roster of lay leaders, and a religious school for children from Sinai along with children from the local Reform temple and from unaffiliated families. We cherish our tight-knit kehillah, which is strengthened by deeply personal relationships among members, and between members and our rabbi. Our 120 membership units include university faculty and staff who moved here from all over the world, extended families with deep roots at Sinai, and a healthy mix of Jews-by-choice, Jews of color, and LGBTQ Jews.
Please visit our website at sinaisynagogue.org to learn more about our lively community!