Announcement of Rabbi Rachel Sabath Beit-Halachmi, PhD, as our inaugural Rabbi

Dear HSOSC Community,

We are delighted to share with you exciting news: Har Sinai Oheb Shalom Congregation has overwhelmingly ratified the Board of Trustees’ unanimous recommendation to welcome Rabbi Rachel Sabath Beit-Halachmi, PhD, as our inaugural rabbi. This is a joyous and historic moment in the life of our new congregation.

Rabbi Sabath joins us officially on July 1, 2021, bringing twenty-five years of rabbinic experience in a wide array of settings. She is a visionary rabbinic leader, a compassionate spiritual counselor, and an engaging teacher and public speaker. As both a congregational leader and an international scholar, Rabbi Sabath is primed to help us both live our mission and grow into the congregation that takes Baltimore’s Reform Jewish community to new heights.

Today represents the culmination of over a year of work to find the right shidduch (“match”) for our new community. Our community thanks the dedicated members of our Rabbinic Search Committees which reviewed over thirty resumes and interviewed over twenty candidates to find the rabbi with the skills and gravitas to ensure stability, excitement, and growth for our future.

As we celebrate today’s milestone, we look forward to helping Rabbi Sabath and her family transition to HSOSC and Baltimore later this year. We recognize that a thoughtful and intentional transition will help build a successful, long-term relationship with Rabbi Sabath and her family and have assembled a diverse and dedicated transition team to assist with this process. We will keep everyone informed as we get closer to Rabbi Sabbath’s official start.

Please join us as we say a collective Sheyhecheyanu to express gratitude for reaching this moment in time.
.בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה, יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ, מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לַזְּמַן הַזֶּה
Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of all, who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to this season.

L’Shalom,
Debbi Jacobs and David Buchalter
Co-Chairs, HSOSC Rabbinic Search Committee

We appreciate the dedicated members of our Rabbinic Search Committees, entrusted to find our congregation a rabbi, for literally countless hours of thoughtful, collaborative work. We cannot thank you enough! Wendy Bralove, Harold Burgin, Micah Damareck, Jesse Feller-Kopman, Dan Hirschhorn, Diane Israel, Jessica Krasnick, Wendy McChesney, Karen Oppenheimer, Rachel Padden, Cecelia Rund, Barbara Schlaff, Nancy Solomon, Leslie Toll, Scott Trager, Andrew Weinman