Reconstructionist Synagogue Names New Rabbi

Mishkan Ha’am, the 50-family Jewish Reconstructionist congregation based in Hastings-on-Hudson begins the Jewish year 5775 with a new rabbi: Rabbi Megan Sanders Doherty. For the first time in its 17 year history, the congregation will have an ordained rabbi who lives close enough to provide programming throughout the month.

Rabbi Megan comes to the congregation from her most recent job as Senior Jewish Fellow and Associate Rabbi at Yale’s Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life where she taught and counseled students from the entire spectrum of Jewish experience. She will be commuting to Mishkan Ha’am from her home in New Haven, CT which she shares with her wife, a post-doctoral researcher in neuroscience at Yale, and their two-year-old daughter.

In the past, the congregation has been led by a series of student and newly ordained rabbis who have lived in the greater Philadelphia area (where the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College is located). This has meant that programming has had to be scheduled on alternating weekends to accommodate the rabbinic leaders’ travel limitations. With Rabbi Megan, the congregation looks forward to a more evenly spread out month of programming.

According to Megan Doherty, who has led two services with the congregation so far being with the Mishkan Ha’am community has already been “a true joy.” She looks forward to “working and learning with people of all ages, and to delving into the wisdom of the Jewish tradition across the life cycle,” in a community where she already feels “welcomed warmly” and where she finds “tremendous opportunities for growth and connection.”

Megan Doherty, 38, ordained in 2007, spent three years living in Israel and is an alumna of the Rabbinic Leadership Program of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. She is currently a student in the Institute’s Jewish Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training Program.

Mishkan Ha’am, 18 Farragut Avenue, Hastings-on-Hudson, http://www.mishkanhaam.org/beresheit/

Media Contact: Sharon Kivowitz, President, sharonkivowitz@gmail.com, 914-478-4996