Serving Small Communities Sparks Big Growth for Student Rabbis

For decades, in communities nationwide, Hebrew Union College’s student rabbis have been bringing Jewish leadership, learning, and creativity to places where Jewish life is vibrant, committed, and often far from major metropolitan areas. As part of their fieldwork program, rabbinical students often serve a student pulpit traveling each month leading services, offering sermons, teaching children and adults, and officiating life cycle events. They partner with dedicated lay leaders to strengthen local community life. This year, those local communities spanned the country from Alaska to Montana to Texas, and along the east coast from Maine to Florida. In reflections from their pulpits, students share how this year of service shaped both them as future rabbis and the congregations they serve.

Megan Eslamboly
Third-year rabbinical student
Serves at Congregation Beth Aaron in Billings, MT

Megan takes a selfie outdoors at Tashlikh service in Lillis Park with congregation members.

Whenever I mention my pulpit, I’m almost always met with the same surprised question: ‘There are Jews in Montana?!’ In truth, there is a vibrant network of Jewish life across the state; scattered across great distances yet ever connected and committed.

As one of the few Reform congregations in the region, Congregation Beth Aaron draws members from as far as 200 miles away. I am continually humbled by the congregants who travel more than an hour and a half each way to provide homemade challah, attend Torah study, or chant the High Holiday Torah readings. Their commitment reminds me that Jewish connection isn’t about convenience—it’s about covenant.

Some of my most meaningful Montana moments range from the lighthearted to the profound: making my first snow angel with the religious school kids while teaching them Shalom Aleichem, performing my first funeral during snowfall, and racing from Neilah to my first-ever rodeo. My time in Billings has taught me that Jewish leadership isn’t measured by the size of a congregation but by the depth of connection you build.

Alden Solovy
Second-year virtual pathway rabbinical student
Serves at Congregation Or HaTzafon in Fairbanks, AK

Alden posing with the Or HaTzafon sign outside the congregation.

The ‘Frozen Chosen’—the Jews of Fairbanks, Alaska—give me hope. I served for an atypical High Holy Day residency, six and a half weeks from the end of August through Chol Hamoed Sukkot. The clergy quarters are in the single-story converted duplex house qua shul. Each morning, I’d walk across the house for my morning tefillah, a profound way to ground myself.

Two of my many favorite moments stand out from my time learning to be a rabbi while serving a vibrant community. We held the first Selichot service at Or HaTzafon in recent memory. Fairbanks is a hands-on place, so I invited everyone present to participate. We were all part of preparing the scrolls for the Days of Awe, holding the two Torahs, undressing and dressing them in white. The emotional impact was palpable. On the Sunday between Yom Kippur and Sukkot, the building buzzed with activities inside and out. Inside: challah baking, sukkah decoration making, and prayer writing, as well as a food drive collection. Outside: our sukkah raising where I taught about the arbah minim. Some of the congregants and their children waved the etrog and lulav for the first time in their lives. The building vibrated with the energy of enjoying being, doing, and learning Jewish together in our own sacred space.

Follow Alden’s further adventures in Fairbanks and at Hebrew Union College on his Substack, ‘Torah Borealis.’ https://aldensolovy.substack.com/

Jade Gordon
Second-year rabbinical student
Serves at Temple B’nai Israel in Amarillo, TX

Jade holds the Torah at Temple B’nai Israel.

My time serving in Amarillo has been more meaningful than I could have ever imagined. What has struck me most is the way this community holds both memory and momentum at once. In recent years the community has said goodbye to several long-time members who formed its backbone, and yet in that very space a new and vibrant cohort has emerged. To walk into a West Texas congregation and find 15 young adults in their 20s and 30s showing up regularly, taking ownership, and shaping the community’s future is extraordinary to see.

These young adults not only attend, but they also lead. Several lay-lead services, and one even learned to chant Torah and serves as gabbai when I’m in Amarillo. This community’s devotion is not out of obligation but of genuine joy and a desire to build something lasting and vibrant together. Serving in Amarillo reminds me exactly why I love Southern Jewish communities, the very kinds of communities that raised me and shaped my sense of Jewish life.

Jade at a High Holy Day Torah service.