PLEASE NOTE: With the change to Daylight Savings Time, our Friday evening services will begin at 7:30pm ET, except for First Fridays.

Clergy/Staff

 

WJC Clergy Team

Phone: 845-679-2218 x1
Email: clergyteam@wjcshul.org

The WJC is currently served by a four-member clergy team: Cantor Raechel Rosen, Chaplain Julie Makowsky, Rabbi Ellen Triebwasser, and Karen Levine.

More information about the individual members of the clergy team can be found HERE.

 

ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF

Rahel Gruenberg

Executive Director

Phone: (845) 684-4481
Email: Rahel@wjcshul.org

Rahel (she/her/hers) joined the WJC community in January of 2022 as the Executive Director. Rahel is a native Bostonian and had been working in the greater Boston Jewish community for the past 15 years before coming to the WJC. She has worked in Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Reform Jewish organizations and is honored to get to engage in professional work where she has an opportunity to help people find and create community. Most recently she served Temple Beth Shalom in Needham, MA as their Community Engagement Manager, overseeing member engagement and the bulk of the temple administrative work. Additionally, she has worked as a Jewish educator, social justice fellow, and education administrator. When not at work you can find Rahel hiking with her family, reading, or knitting. She, with her wife, Eva, and their dog Zuggy, look forward to getting to know you.

 

Ilana Streit

​Executive Assistant

Email: ilana@wjcshul.org

Ilana (she/her/hers) joined the WJC community in September of 2022.  She is the grandchild and great-grandchild of Jews from Germany and Eastern Europe. She grew up in the diverse, politically progressive town of Montclair, NJ, in a small, warm, Reconstructionist synagogue. Ilana has spent the past 17 years living in Greater Boston, working as a Jewish communal professional while being a local tante (aunt) to her nieces, who are now 14 and 17.

Ilana is an ordained kohenet (Hebrew priestess) and a graduate of the Heller/ Hornstein MA/MBA Program in Jewish Community Leadership and Mission-Driven Management at Brandeis University. She spends her time building community, learning and practicing holistic healing modalities, and singing a lot. Ilana has studied, davenned (prayed), taught and led in communities and institutions in the Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Renewal, and havurah movements, as well as in pluralistic Jewish spaces.

Ilana brings warmth, creativity, and a sense of humor to the Jewish world as a poet, liturgist, singer-songwriter, educator, coach, collaborator and community member.

As a Jewish educator, she brings a deep respect for learners of all ages and backgrounds, and is particularly passionate about family education.

Ilana is inspired by WJC’s love, wisdom, energy, and passion, and is excited to add her own to the community. She looks forward to getting to know each of you, and working together to build a WJC that continues to grow in strength and vitality.

 

Karl Steen

Facilities Manager