91�첥

Rabbi Sharon holding the Torah at the Western Wall with CCAR

Growing up on Kibbutz Nachshon in central Israel, Rabbi Dana Sharon ’21 never imagined herself becoming Reform clergy – mostly because she was not even aware of Reform Judaism. It was only through working as a counselor at a Jewish summer camp in the United States as a young adult that she was exposed to the Reform Movement for the first time.

“I remember when I got back from camp feeling like something had been kept from me,” Sharon recalls. “I live on Kibbutz Nachshon, and nearby on Kibbutz Gezer, there has been such a beautiful Reform congregation for so many years, and I was so upset that no one had told me that this was an option. And so I decided that I should be striving to make this an option for everyone who is interested.”

Sharon’s commitment would ultimately lead her to 91�첥’s Israel Rabbinical Program (IRP), but there were other stops along her path, in both higher education and activism. “It was definitely a journey,” she says.

Sharon earned a B.A. in General and Comparative Literature from the Hebrew University, and then began to work toward an M.A. in Literature and Gender, but decided to step back from her studies to focus on social justice work. She spent three years at the Mandel Foundation, which works to advance Democratic values, justice, and inclusion in Israel and the U.S. Sharon also served on the boards of the Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance and Women of the Wall, and she spent several years as the social media director at the Israel Reform Action Center, the legal and public arm of the Reform Movement in the country.

Marching at Pride 2019 in support of LGBTQ+ inclusion in Jewish life with Rabbi Rodrigo Baumworcel ’21, Sharon’s chavruta throughout her time at IRP

Sharon eventually registered for the M.A. program in Contemporary Judaism and Jewish Art at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, with the goal of continuing on to the Israel Rabbinical Program at 91�첥. She says when she got to the IRP, she realized that she had a lot of work to do to ground her activist principles in text and tradition, beyond what she had learned in her previous study of contemporary Jewish thought.

“At first, my attitude was, ‘That’s the only thing that’s interesting — who cares about the old timers?’ And the IRP response was, ‘Actually, you need to care.’ And I do care. I love Talmud now, I love Mishnah now, I’m actually passionate about Shulchan Arukh, which I would never have expected I would be. Because my professors forced my hand a little bit and said, ‘Yes, you do get to pick and choose’, but you need to know what you are picking and choosing from.’”

Sharon says there was another aspect of the program she is especially grateful for today. “Even though I was always saying, ‘I don’t want to be a congregational rabbi, it’s not my thing,’ the IRP was like, ‘We’re not letting you limit yourself like that.’ They insisted that I needed to have really solid synagogue skills” through student pulpit work. Sharon also had the opportunity to deepen her knowledge of Reform congregational life in Israel and the U.S. through the Golden Family Hanassi Fellows Program, which included practical work at Har-El Congregation in Jerusalem. Overall, Sharon describes her years in the Israel Rabbinical Program as “a life-altering experience in the best way imaginable.”

Celebrating ordination with fellow IRP alum, Rabbi Noa Sattah ’14

Though she served for a time as the rabbi of the Reform Congregation Kehillat Yuval in Gadera, Sharon ultimately chose to live out her rabbinate in the activist space. She now heads the Rabbis’ Network for the organization Rabbis for Human Rights, working with “people living in poverty in Israel and with disenfranchised and terrorized Palestinian populations in the occupied territories” — concerns that she says are once again at the center of the discourse both in the Israeli mainstream and in Jewish communities around the world since the October 7 attacks. In early 2024, in collaboration with Rabbi Lisa Grant, Ph.D., Sharon helped lead the One HUC Delegation to Israel to strengthen 91�첥’s commitment to Israel and the Jewish People and demonstrate support for the Jerusalem campus community.

Sharon says she is able to navigate the difficult issues at the heart of her work because her professors and cohort of graduates from the Israel Rabbinical program are the kind of people who “don’t shy away from reality, and don’t ignore it. We don’t close ourselves within the four walls of halacha.” As a uniquely Israeli institution, Sharon adds, the IRP has a particularly important role to play in discussions with Reform communities in the diaspora. That’s because a key objective of the program is “to cultivate a culture of machloket l’shem shamayim, a respectful discourse of disagreement that we can all grow from and learn from — and we don’t have to agree,” she says.

Addressing a crowd at the Western Wall with CCAR

“We have such a diverse group of people who are all committed to understanding the idea that, when it comes to Jewish life and Jewish leadership, tomorrow is going to look different – whether we like it or not. We embrace change in a really wonderful way.”