Brawer to quit UK for campus role in America
ONE OF the UK’s leading modern Orthodox rabbis is to take up a campus role at an American university.
Naftali Brawer has been appointed Jewish chaplain and director of the Hillel at Tufts University in Massachusetts and will start in May.
A former minister of Borehamwood and Elstree United Synagogue, Rabbi Brawer has, for the past seven years, been chief executive of the Spiritual Capital Foundation, a consultancy running programmes for companies on ethics and values.
Two years ago, he and his wife Dina launched regular pop-up minyans and educational events in London under the umbrella of Mishkan.
His books include A Brief Guide to Judaism and, together with Rabbi Jonathan Romain, Rabbi, I Have A Problem, a compilation of their JC columns.
“The future of America is being shaped on university campuses,” Rabbi Brawer observed. “I cannot think of a more exciting place to be.” Tufts is located close to Boston, where Rabbi Brawer was born.
Ted Tye, who headed the search committee for the post, said Rabbi Brawer stood out among 90 candidates, impressing with “his easy manner, leadership, depth of thought, and nuanced understanding of the ways in which Tufts Hillel can play a critical role in the discussion of important issues occurring across our campuses”.
Mrs Brawer is in her final year as a long-distance student of the Orthodox women’s ordination programme at Yeshivat Maharat in New York.
Rabbi Brawer stressed the decision to leave the UK was not because of any difficulty his wife might have in gaining a position in a central Orthodox institution in the UK following her graduation.
“This is not the story at all — she never wanted to get a job in the establishment here,” he said. “Dina is an activist and entrepreneur at heart.
She is passionate about entrepreneurial rabbinics, of which there is a growing awareness in the States, and she really wants to build something creative. There is just a great opportunity for both of us there.” A number of Orthodox congregations in the States have appointed graduates of Yeshivat Maharat to educational and community roles, although the central Rabbinical Council of America has refused to acknowledge their ordination. Mrs Brawer already has a link with Hillel in America as one of the participants in its Office of Innovation Fellowship for Rabbinic Entrepeneurs, which she is due to complete this year.