Overview
Sixth & I is a vibrant Jewish spiritual community for people in their 20s and 30s, and an arts and culture center featuring book talks, concerts, comedy shows, and podcast recordings. Sixth & I has gained a national reputation as a welcoming, fun, excellence-seeking, spirituality-growing, intellectual-discourse-building, risk-taking, and justice-pursuing home for thousands of Washingtonians.
Our Jewish communal work is grounded in the following principles:
● Radical welcoming no matter one’s religious background or political orientation.
● Building kehillah kedosha among young professionals through teaching/modeling compassion and responsibility for others to create a shared sense of belonging.
● Teaching and learning sacred texts as a way to understand who we want to be and how we want to engage the world.
● Connecting newcomers to Judaism, including those converting to Judaism, non-Jewish partners of Jews, and Jews not actively practicing.
● Creating transformative and meaningful prayer experiences.
● Pursuing justice in America, in Israel, and abroad.
Essential Duties & Responsibilities:
● Teach:
○ Develop new curricula for additional teaching opportunities that allow for ancient texts to reverberate in students’ modern lives.
○ Teach a minimum of two classes per week – including both existing curricula and new topics of your choosing.
○ Build new classes based on your own interests and the feedback of community members.
● Support interfaith couples, conversion students, Jews and seekers of all types:
○ Provide one-on-one consultations for students in Sixth & I’s range of classes for interfaith couples and newcomers to Judaism.
○ Facilitate sessions based on existing curricula for Sixth & I’s Interfaith Couples Workshop, Jewish Welcome Workshop, and Basically Jewish classes.
○ Staff at least one Honeymoon Israel trip per year.
● Prayer and Music:
○ Build meaningful prayer experiences through music, drashim, and kavanot.
○ Hold an engaging bimah presence.
○ Coordinate rehearsals and create service outlines with Sixth & I’s music team.
○ Develop a unique, signature service that fits the Sixth & I brand of spiritual programming for those in their 20s and 30s.
○ At a minimum, lead one Friday evening Shabbat service per month.
○ At a minimum, lead one Saturday morning Shabbat learner’s service per month.
○ Lead inclusive and accessible High Holy Day and other holiday services and programming.
● Creatively make best use of the dual nature (spiritual and secular) of Sixth & I.
● Supervise Sixth & I’s collectives (our lay-led interest groups).
● Report to Senior Rabbi while exercising full range of communal and pastoral responsibilities.
Our new rabbi must...
● Have a personality that’s dynamic and engaging, available and accessible, compassionate and curious, thoughtful and flexible, kind and nonjudgmental, people-loving, happy and funny, both vulnerable and prophetic at Yom Kippur and off-color in a Purim shpiel.
● Have the ability to draw people into relationships with the rabbi, the Sixth & I community, and the Jewish world (but not in that order).
● Have the ability to have meaningful conversations about Israel, politics, and contemporary Jewish practice with people from across the spectrum, and considers very few conversations “beyond the pale” or worthy of boycott.
● Be committed to the vision of Sixth & I and represent its mission and values in the community.
● Understand there’s still a lot to learn; hungry for new rabbinic experiences.
● Be excited for a wide range of young professional-oriented rabbinic roles.
● While Sixth & I welcomes and encourages candidates from all denominations, our rabbi must:
○ Permit mixed-sex seating in prayer services.
○ Accept the conversions of Sixth & I rabbis.
○ Be a minimum of two years post-seminary.
○ Be willing to officiate at interfaith marriages for couples creating a Jewish household. (strongly preferred)
Sixth & I is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants of all sexualities and gender identities.
Salary dependent on experience and includes good benefits. Applications accepted on a rolling basis.
To apply, please submit the following to jobs@sixthandi.org:
Resume and cover letter (one page max) highlighting work with 20s/30s and answering the question: “Why Sixth & I?”
List your favorite two classes you have taught, plus any videos, class outlines, text studies.
Video of you giving a sermon (actual sermon given in front of people preferred).
Video or voice recording of you singing a niggun or tune you would teach a group of newcomer young professional Jews at a kabbalat shabbat service. You don’t have to teach it to us; just sing. Don’t worry if you can’t sing well - we just want to feel the love.
About Sixth & I
Sixth & I is a hybrid center for arts, entertainment, and ideas and a synagogue that reimagines how religion and community can enhance people’s everyday lives. Housed within a revitalized historic space dating back to 1908 in the heart of the Nation’s Capital, our unexpected mix of cultural and spiritual programs embraces the multi-faceted identities of those we serve and offers wide-ranging, eye-opening, and accessible experiences to inspire more meaningful and fulfilling lives.
Our arts and culture programming—including talks, concerts, and comedy shows—entertains and enlightens the widest possible audience with innovative experiences that fuel curiosity, spark inspiration, and promote interaction with preeminent thought leaders and pop culture influencers.
Our Jewish programming—including education, Shabbat services, holiday celebrations, and social justice work—offers dynamic ways for those primarily in their 20s and 30s to engage with Jewish values, ideas, and traditions on their own terms and without judgment. As a multi-denominational and non-membership spiritual home, Sixth & I works to foster community among people at a similar stage of life, figuring out what matters to them and who they want to be.