28
Ilana Mills
Rabbinical Student/Los Angeles
A
s a fifth-year rabbinical student – and sister to two
rabbis – Ilana Mills knows all about the dictum in
Deuteronomy: “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” As
a rabbinical intern helping to lead efforts in community
organizing at Los Angeles’ Leo Baeck Temple, she’s
putting it into action. “When I see injustice, I get angry,”
she says. “It comes from my gut.”
Mills’ work is part of the Union for Reform Judaism’s Just
Congregations Initiative. Still in its infant stages at Leo
Baeck Temple, her job is to get people talking and sup-
porting them so they can build strong relationships and
act together more effectively.
“
We help people share with one another who they
really are and what matters most to them in order to
help them grapple with the social and economic change
they want to andare able tomake together in theworld.
I believe that God is in those moments.”
H
aving come to HUC-JIR after exploring fields as di-
verse as music and nursing, Aryeh Ballaban is ready
to take on the mantle of his legacy as the son of two rab-
binical alumni – Rabbi Julie Schwartz, C ’86 and Rabbi
Steven Ballaban, C ’86, Ph.D. ‘95.
Ballaban points to the special joys of his student pulpit in
Paducah, KY – a community of 38 families that has been
around since the 1860s – that appeals to his keen interest
in history. Paducah was the only city in the United States
to expel their Jews during the Civil War, in accordance
with General Ulysses Grant’s anti-Semitic General Order
#11
of December 17, 1862. Cesar J. Kaskel of Paducah
immediately set out for Washington to put the matter
before President Lincoln, who revoked the order on
January 5, 1863.
“
The synagogue still has the vast majority of their
records,” says Ballaban. “I’ll go to their small library and
read through their archives across the generations to see
how the congregation has developed, changed, and not
changed.” Once a larger community able to support the
purchase of a new building in the 1970s with a sanctuary
that seats 80 and a full religious school wing that is not in
use anymore, “it has slowly diminished and most of the
members are over 50 years old,” he explains.
Ballaban visits his community every three weeks, traveling
five-and-a-half hours each way by car. He enjoys leading
Friday night services, providing educational programs for
adults and children on
Shabbat
,
engaging in individual con-
versations about conversion or spirituality, and offering
pastoral visits to a hospital or homebound congregant –
and finds ways to integrate his classroom learning into his
pulpit activities.
“
I am incredibly impressed by the significant efforts my
congregants have taken to be sure that their history is
preserved and their story will continue
.
As a rabbinical
student lifeline, I am helping to assure that synagogue’s
survival.”
Aryeh Ballaban,
Rabbinical Student/Cincinnati
Rabbinical student
Ilana Mills in con-
versation as part
of her community
organizing work.
