Wriiten By: Anna Rubin
Rabbi Simkha Weintraub, currently the Rabbinic Director for the New York Jewish Healing Center and National Center for Jewish Healing, a sector of the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services (JBFCS), calls himself a “pulpit-free” rabbi.
Informed by the joy his father experienced as a rabbi in the 1950s-70s working in DC for the civil and social rights of his wider, non-Jewish community, Rabbi Weintraub takes immense pleasure in being able to merge his roles of rabbi and social worker in his work with JBFCS, participating in community organizing and social justice work, as well as one-on-one counseling and group therapy sessions. Working with JBFCS has allowed him to interact with and help New Yorkers of every stripe, Jews and non-Jews alike, and the pride he takes in this work ties into the importance he places on intercommunity and interfaith work.
In speaking about interfaith work, Rabbi Weintraub states simply, “It gives me hope.” Pointing to the souring amount of conflict worldwide, Rabbi Weintraub stresses the importance of people talking, building bridges, and forming kinship in ways that allow people to relate to one another. He has been involved in a myriad interfaith efforts for the past several decades, with an emphasis on Jewish-Muslim interfaith dialogue work and interfaith discussions and trainings surrounding medicine and healing. He came to Jewish healing work after holding the position of Director of Public Affairs for the New Israel Fund, an organization dedicated to bridging social and economic gaps in Israel between the Jewish and Arab populations, for nine years. He says he sees a deep connection between individual and a community/society’s healing, and that this connection needs to be understood when doing any sort of healing work.
For the past seven years, Rabbi Weintraub has participated in the Interfaith Center’s annual 8-session “Social Work and Religious Diversity” series, speaking on topics such as faith based perspectives on depression and mental illness, and understanding the role of religion in social work. Rabbi Weintraub says he wishes the Interfaith Center were twenty times its size, because, as he put it, “New York presents incredible opportunities for interfaith work,” and the Interfaith Center is doing great work in building understanding and trust across the city.
To continue the conversation with Rabbi Simkha Weintraub, please join us on June 17th at the Social Work and Religious Diversity conference. Click here for information and registration.
