Jan Rabinowitch
Director of Education
Jan Rabinowitch grew up in Palo Alto, California, attending Temple Beth Am in Los Altos Hills and volunteering in the religious school — despite an interlude of adolescent rebelliousness — until graduating from its high school program.
Jan attended Barnard College in New York, and her interest in Jewish study and Jewish life were re-enaged under the joint influences of her professors at Barnard and the boys up the street at Jewish Theological Seminary. After receiving her undergraduate degree cum laude, she moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts to attend Harvard Divinity School. Upon completion of the Program on Religion and Education, she received a Master of Theological Studies degree and lifetime Kg-12 teacher certification through Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.
She began her teaching career in Los Angeles at the Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School where she taught for four years along with teaching and developing curricula for Reform congregations. She also facilitated Jewish-Christian dialogues through the National Conference of Christians and Jews. She returned to Boston and after one year of teaching, she was asked to take the newly-created position of Religious School Supervisor at Temple Shalom of Newton, Massachusetts. While supervising the religious school, she continued to teach several grades at other synagogues in the area and to develop curricula and teaching materials, some of which are used nationally.
Jan returned to the West Coast to become the first professional Jewish educator at Temple Beth Israel in Portland. After eight wonderful years she decided to devote more time to consulting, teacher training, research, and to developing the lectures and workshop series Binah: Building Bridges of Understanding Between Jews and Christians.
Carrie Pettee
Administrator
Shalom! My name is Carrie Pettee and I have been hired on by the congregation (you!) as the new administrator/front office person. I bring with me over 10 years experience in office administration, over 6 years experienced in bookkeeping and over 3 years experience working with nonprofits. I am currently working on my BS in Business at Portland State University.
As some of you know, I am not of the Jewish faith, so I’ll apologize in advance for my ineptitude, but I am (with the help of everyone) slowly but surely learning the language and customs. I want to let everyone know that I am here to do whatever I can to help you in whatever capacity you need. Feel free to call me with any questions, concerns or requests.
My office hours are generally Monday and Tuesday, 9-5; Wednesday 9-3; Thursday 9-6:30 and Sunday 8:30 – 1:00. I have been working at the Learning Center since June of this year, and I am so happy to finally be official! I have had nothing but excellent experiences with all the congregants and I look forward to getting to know all of you in the future.
L’shanah tovah tikatev v’taihatem!