Marsha Dubrow Installed as Rabbi of B’nai Jacob
Rabbi Marsha Dubrow was installed as Rabbi of Congregation B’nai Jacob in Jersey City on Sunday, September 14th.
As a young girl growing up in South Orange, Marsha Dubrow dreamed of becoming a rabbi. Last July, she realized that dream and last Sunday was formally installed in front of a congregation of 100 as rabbi of Congregation B’nai Jacob, an egalitarian Conservative synagogue on Jersey City’s West Side.
Dubrow spent the past year at the Jewish Spiritual Leaders Institute (JSLI), a non-denominational seminary headquartered in New York City. This is a program, she said, designed for “people like myself who are older and have years of practical experience leading congregations.”
Dubrow is quite modest. She shook up B’nai Jacob with her lively music, much of it original, and her vibrant personality. She entered fully into the JSLI program, which was done online weekly for several hours, and involved colleagues known as a “hevruta.”
She described two components of the sessions: a learning experience and visiting rabbis. There were original research and presentations as well as a d’var Torah, which is a typical sermon on the weekly scriptures.
“We would attempt to find contemporary meaning to the message contained,” said Dubrow.
Each week there was a topic, such as marriage, intermarriage, same-sex marriage, Jewish law and circumcision. The discussion would include perspectives from all the various Jewish denominations: Modern Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist, for example.
Last July, a trio of rabbis, Steven Blane, dean of the JSLI faculty, Monty Sugarman and David Grossman, together having served as her Bet Din, conferred on her rabbinic ordination, known as Semicha.