By Ally Hadge, Features Editor
Dr. Deena Rabinovich serves as the Chair of the Jewish Studies Department and the Director of the Legacy Heritage Fund Jewish Educators Project at Stern College for Women. She earned her undergraduate degree at Stern College and her EdD from the Azrieli School of Jewish Education and Administration at Yeshiva University. Dr. Rabinovich teaches a wide range of Judaic studies courses at Stern, where her students are inspired by her engaging and enriching classes on Torah and Judaism.
Where are you from?
I was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan and grew up in Detroit. My father was a professor at the University of Michigan and my mother was going for her doctorate. They moved to Detroit when I hit grade school because there were not any Jewish schools at the time in Ann Arbor.
How long have you worked at YU?
Since 2005. For the first four years, I was teaching at Central Yeshiva High School for Girls and teaching two classes at Stern. In 2009, I switched over to Stern full-time.
What do you like most about working at YU?
Interacting with the students and faculty. The entire faculty shares a love for YU and we all enjoy our jobs. I look forward to coming to work every single day. I am very lucky.
What made you passionate about Jewish Studies?
I think I learned to love learning them. I don’t know that I would [have said] that growing up. I never planned on going into Jewish education. I went to a small high school. The joke is that I was in the top twelve of my class because there were only twelve of us. We did not have many classes to choose from. There was no room for electives, choosing this or choosing that. When I went to Israel and went to Stern, I was finally able to pick classes that I was interested in. It opened up my world. I began doing what I am doing because I felt that I loved it so much and it spoke to me.
Do you have any advice for students interested in Jewish education?
We desperately need people to join the field. We need passionate people. We need learned people. We need people who want to pay it forward to the next generation.
What is your favorite topic to teach?
In some ways, all of what I teach I enjoy. If I don’t love it, I don’t teach it. Usually, it takes a few times around till I really feel that I have mastered the material or what I call “knowing the end of the story.” It is not simply knowing the information, it’s knowing how I want to set things up for the students. I want them to be able to have the “aha” moment and put the pieces together.
What do you want students to know?
I would say to keep on learning. We are blessed to be able to have such an education. My inspiration comes from my parents. They were both doctors. They both loved learning. That certainly had an impact on me. My grandmother was never able to go to a yeshiva. She would seek opportunities to learn Jewish subjects, to learn anything. We are so fortunate to have so much to learn, we need to stop for a second and take note of it to notice how lucky we truly are.
What book would you recommend everyone to read?
I remember in college reading As A Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg. That was the first time I had seen something like that. A Jewish figure, a figure from the Mishniac time. Fictional, but historical fiction. That was something very eye-opening, merging the two worlds together.
If you could bring in any guest lecturer, alive or dead, who would it be?
I find myself always coming back to Dovid Hamelech. There is something about Dovid Hamelech and his ability to lead. He made monumental mistakes, but the unbelievable way he emerged from those mistakes and moved forward was truly remarkable and inspiring. We can never be perfect. It’s human nature to make mistakes. What makes you great is not that you are not making mistakes, but what you do after the fact.
Photo Caption: Dr. Deena Rabinovich serves as the Chair of the Jewish Studies Department at SCW
Photo Credit: Dr. Deena Rabinovich