About Me
My greatest joy is creating and celebrating meaningful life-cycle events for Jews and for interfaith couples and families. My life is devoted to inclusion and welcoming into religious and secular worlds, and this passion is a thread that runs through my choice of studies and work throughout my life. As you will read, I have not followed one professional path or educational program, but have woven together a life that keeps me engaged in many aspects of support and caring for other human beings.
I found my rabbinic calling in working with interfaith couples, families, and Jews who were unattached to congregational life.
I started my career path with rabbinic ordination, in the Reform Movement of Judaism, in 1994, I have been serving Jews, interfaith families, and spiritual seekers around the world. I started as a congregational rabbi in Dover, NH, taught Introduction to Judaism classes for the Union of Reform Judaism in Boston, and moved into international interfaith work through my role as the Rabbinic Director of www.InterfaithFamily,com. My rabbinic work is directed toward social justice, as I continue to serve Jews and interfaith couples and their families through celebrating life-cycle events and rabbinic counseling.
My career path has not been a straight line, although I never severed the thread of social justice and helping others. I started as a lawyer for Juvenile rights and protection and moved into congregational life as a rabbi. I found my rabbinic calling in working with interfaith couples, families, and Jews who were unattached to congregational life. After years of working with my head and my heart, I yearned to bring my hands into my work. I chose the nursing profession as the next direction.
My college education began at Clark University, in Worcester, MA, with a BA in Psychology in 1984. I continued with a JD from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in NYC, NY in 1987. I entered rabbinic school in 1989 after deciding to follow my mother’s family’s profession, to start the 4th rabbinic generation of our family in the USA. Our rabbinic lineage continues back to the 1700’s in Eastern Europe. In 2011 I started my third career as a Registered Nurse at Regis College-Lawrence Memorial Hospital in MA. I graduated with my RN in 2013. I followed this initial degree with a BSN and MSN in Nursing Leadership form Western Governors University, online, and am enrolled in a DNP program at Aspen University online.
Since becoming an RN, I worked at Seton Brackenridge, our community hospital, serving our financially disadvantaged, uninsured, and undocumented neighbors. I moved into Hospice nursing with Hospice Austin and continued to serve the same populations. I did a stint with the Texas Hospital Association as a Quality and Patient Safety coach for 32 rural and critical access hospitals in West Texas. In an effort to bring my education, training and passion for social justice together, I am now the full-time Academic Advisor in an online Psych NP Program at Regis college, where my nursing career began. I am also Adjunct faculty there in their NP/DNP online program. I continue to serve Hospice Austin with community education and “as needed” bedside hospice nursing. And, believe it or not, I find time and pleasure actively engaging with Jewish and interfaith couples and families in creating and celebrating meaningful and creative life-cycle events.
I settled in Austin, TX with my husband of over 2 decades, C. Andrew Martin. We moved here to be in the warmth of the sun, to experience the cultures of Austin, and to be ensconced in a community that does the work of justice while thoroughly enjoying life. In my spare-time, however rare that may be, you can find me at a glass studio, playing in our garden, cooking meals for friends, feeding our chickens, walking our dog, and learning Spanish.
