The Class of 2025 is Ready to Lead the Future of Jewish Life Across North America

With ordination behind them and opportunity ahead, the Class of 2025 is bringing bold new leadership to Jewish communities from coast to coast. From Hawaii to Montana, Baltimore to Montreal, and Colorado to California, these graduates are bringing their skills, spirit, and leadership to a wide range of settings; strengthening and shaping Jewish life across North America.

Through years of immersive study, pastoral training, cross-cultural exchange, and interfaith engagement, they have prepared to meet the evolving needs of the communities they will serve. While the majority of this year’s class is serving in congregational positions, several are beginning their work in settings outside of congregational life, including Jewish day schools, a medical center, and the Society for the Advancement of Judaism. Two will even continue their leadership at Hebrew Union College, contributing to the next generation of students.

When asked to reflect on their time at school, these new clergy used three words again and again: supportive, community, and emerging, according to recent survey data from Hebrew Union College’s Office of Assessment, Institutional Research, and Compliance. That sense of connection is carrying forward, with many planning to stay involved as mentors, attend study retreats, and pursue lifelong learning. Their commitment to Jewish leadership didn’t end at ordination, it’s just beginning.

For Rabbi Eden Glaser ’25 who will be the new Assistant Rabbi at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, Baltimore, MD, her time at HUC was shaped by hard-won lessons of resilience and reflection. She shared that her experience helped her embrace the complexity of both joy and pain, a central theme in Jewish life and leadership.

“My time in rabbinical school was marred by communal, global, and personal crisis and yet it was also colored with much joy,” she shared. “The demand to acknowledge both the bitter and sweet pervades our textual tradition, and my professors and peers helped me unearth and enact these perennial lessons.”

For Cantor Sierra Fox ’25, the journey from student to clergy was as much personal as it was professional. Initially feeling doubtful and disconnected she found her calling in Israel, taking the Hebrew name, “Shirah” meaning song, in a moment of clarity that reawakened her purpose. Now stepping into her first full-time cantorial role at Congregation Mishkan Israel, Hamden, CT, Fox intends to draw on all that she’s learned to help create meaningful programs and deeper connections. She’s excited to help her new community imagine what a full-time cantorate can bring, from pastoral care and musical programming to interfaith engagement and LGBTQIA+ inclusion.

“Music has become for me what I always imagined it could be: a beautiful language with which to connect to others,” she said. “I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life sharing the fire in my soul and the song of love in my heart with our community.” As she enters her new position as cantor at Temple B’nai Jeshurun, Short Hills, NJ, Cantor Beth Reinstein ’25 feels grounded in the values and insights she gained from her teachers. For her, the intersection of music and meaning remains central. Looking ahead, she’s excited to help her community connect more deeply to tradition and to one another through the power of music, especially by building a new temple choir program.

“I’ll never forget the lesson I learned in Cantor Benjie Ellen Schiller’s Shabbat class that our job as cantors is to serve the text,” she recalled. “Whatever musical selections we want to pick for worship should help to express and elevate the text.” These are just a few of the voices shaping the future of Jewish life. Together, the Class of 2025 is stepping into leadership with care, curiosity, and a commitment to serve and grow.