Cleveland Hillel Foundation and Oberlin College Appoint Rabbi Megan Doherty as Jewish Campus Life Affiliate

The Board of Directors of the Cleveland Hillel Foundation has announced that Rabbi Megan Doherty has joined its professional staff as the new Oberlin College Jewish Campus Life Affiliate (Hillel).

Rabbi Doherty most recently served the Mishkan Ha'am Reconstructionist Community in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. From 2010-2014, she served as the senior Jewish fellow and associate rabbi at the Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale University, where she was privileged to teach, learn from, and serve as spiritual advisor for a diverse and pluralistic community of Jewish students. After graduating from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC) in 2007, she spent three years living in Tel Aviv, teaching, leading and learning with groups including RRC students, Masorti (Conservative) congregation Tiferet Shalom, and the Institute for Overseas Leaders of the Jewish Agency. Rabbi Doherty is an alumna of the Rabbinic Leadership and Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training Programs of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, and is a 2015-16 Facilitation Fellow with Resetting the Table.

Rabbi Doherty’s genuine warmth, keen intellect, sensitive listening, and love of community prompted the search committee to unanimously endorse her for the position, concluding that she is the ideal candidate to serve the Oberlin community at this very important time in our history.

The Jewish Campus Life Affiliate will engage with a complex and diverse population of Jewish students, staff, and faculty, and is responsible for ensuring meaningful and diverse opportunities for Jewish expression, identifying and cultivating student leaders, and consistently promoting a welcoming and lively pluralistic Jewish community.

Oberlin College Hillel offers a wide variety of social, cultural and religious programming, such as lectures, performances and weekly Shabbat dinners. Student organizations include CHALLaH cappella, Oberlin Zionists, Johnson House (Jewish studies program house), Kosher Halal Co-op, and Queer Jews, among others. The community is vibrant, diverse, and welcoming, full of opportunities to engage and grow.

“I am thrilled to have Rabbi Megan Doherty join our team of engaged religious life affiliates at Oberlin,” says David Dorsey, multifaith chaplain and director of the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life. “I believe that Megan's longstanding commitment to social justice and her efforts in community belonging across the full spectrum of Jewish thought and observance are particularly inspiring.”

Dorsey says he applauds the leadership of Jared Issacson, executive director of Cleveland Hillel, and Gregg Levine, vice president of the board of directors, for their partnership that helped lead to this important appointment.

The mission of the Cleveland Hillel Foundation is to engage and empower Jewish young adults through exceptional programming and experiences that foster active Jewish life on and off campus and in the Cleveland Jewish community, and has a vision that every Jewish young adult aspires to lifelong Jewish identity and commitment to Jewish life and community.

Originally from Seattle, Rabbi Doherty earned her bachelor’s in liberal arts at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, and spent time after college teaching English as a Second Language as a member of AmeriCorps, coordinating events and volunteer programs at the North Seattle Family Center, and on ulpan (immersive Hebrew language study) in Israel. Rabbi Doherty and her wife and daughter currently live in New Haven, Connecticut. They are moving to Oberlin in early August.