The project “Leading Where Life Happens: Mapping and Building the Field of Jewish Chaplaincy” builds and strengthens Jewish chaplaincy as a field and supports the strategic vision and practical innovation that enables Jewish chaplains to do their work most effectively into the future.

Mapping the current field, this project describes and explores who is working as a Jewish chaplain, how Jewish chaplains are trained, the settings and situations where they work and what their responsibilities are. On the demand side, we are learning where chaplains are needed and about models for their financial support. We will then use the data collected to host new conversations where participants envision and concretely move toward creating the infrastructure required to build professional and leadership pipelines and strategically coordinated innovations in this field.

The Lab is gathering a number of resources pertinent to Jewish spiritual care resulting from this project, which are listed below.

The project is proceeding in three phases:

• Develop a preliminary map of the key individuals and institutions involved in Jewish chaplaincy, with the results designed to inform subsequent conversations.
• Gather survey and interview data from Jewish chaplains across the country in order to validate and inform a fuller understanding of the field as it currently stands.
• Using the collected data, we will develop a working paper and convene a set of high-level planning conversations to chart a strategic plan for Jewish chaplaincy for the next decade.

The year-long conversation among key leaders in a Strategic Planning Group is further building the relationships and attention to Jewish chaplaincy required for future field success. Through this conversation, the project plays a key role in defining and supporting an authentic Jewish approach to the work of chaplaincy and spiritual care, from inside the field itself. Besides helping to establish Jewish chaplaincy as an independent professional field, this effort will also clarify what the broader field of chaplaincy can learn from it. The Strategic Planning Group also convened in a conference in October 2021.

Resources in Jewish Spiritual Care

An Advisory Board of leaders in Jewish spiritual care guides this project.

Rabbi Joanna Katz attended the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and was ordained in 1988. She has worked as a chaplain in college, hospital, psychiatric and prison settings.  From 2000-2019 Joanna worked for the Department of Corrections of New York State, serving incarcerated women in the state system. She was the co-founder and director of the Prison and Reentry Clinical Pastoral Education Program at the Jewish Theological Center from 2016-2020. In October 2020 Joanna became a Certified Educator through ACPE.

In 1992 Joanna co-founded Elat Chayyim, the Jewish Spiritual Retreat Center, with her partner Rabbi Jeffrey Roth.  She is a student of Eastern and Western contemplative practices and teaches meditation regularly. She lives in the Hudson River Valley of New York.

Allison Kestenbaum, MA, MPA, BCC, ACPE Certified Educator is the Supervisor of Spiritual Care and Clinical Pastoral Education at UC San Diego Health.  Allison conducts research about spiritual and palliative care/education. She is a Cambia Health Foundation Sojourns Scholar.  Allison served as an ACPE Educator at Jewish Theological Seminary and UC San Francisco Health.  She worked in planning and allocations at UJA-Federation of New York. She has served on the Board of Directors and Certification Commission of Neshama: Association of Jewish Chaplains. She earned her MA in Judaic Studies and MPA in Non-profit Management from New York University. Allison is board certified (APC and NAJC).

Rabbi Abraham “Abe” Schacter-Gampel serves as the Director of Spiritual Care at Memphis Jewish Home & Rehab. A native of New York, Abe completed his first unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a year long CPE residency at Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare in Memphis, Tennessee. Abe studied at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School and was ordained in June 2017. He is a Board Certified Chaplain through Neshama: Association of Jewish Chaplains. He is married to Rabbi Sarit Horwitz and they are the proud parents of their son, Lavi Hersh.

Yonatan Warren (LCDR, CHC, USN) is a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park and the Graduate School at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS). Ordained from the Rabbinical School at JTS in 2011, Rabbi Warren reported for Active Duty as a Chaplain in the United States Navy that September. In the years since, Rabbi Warren served with Marine Corps units in the Pacific, at sea aboard the USS OAK HILL, and as staff at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. In his current setting, Rabbi Warren is a clinical chaplain at Navy Medicine Readiness & Training Command, Portsmouth, VA.

Rabbi Seth Winberg is Executive Director of Hillel, Director of Spiritual Life, and Senior Chaplain at Brandeis University. Previously he served at Michigan Hillel and the Chicago Hillels. Under his leadership, the Chicago Hillels opened the first Base Hillel outside of New York and received Hillel International’s Phillip H. and Susan Rudd Cohen Outstanding Campus Award. He also served on the Chicago Board of Rabbis’ executive committee and on Jewish Women International’s rabbinic task force, and has been recognized for his Israel advocacy. His writing has appeared in JTA, The Boston Globe, The Jerusalem Post, The Chicago Sun-Times and Hakirah.