RABBINIC INTERNS

The OJC has been truly fortunate in having exceptional Rabbinic interns spend 9 months each year with our congregation. On this page we look back, with fondness and gratitude, for their contributions to THE OJC.

Deborah Steiner Rabbinic Interns:

Our 2023-2024 rabbinic intern is Will Guyster, a 4th year Rabbinical School student at The Jewish Theological Seminary.

About Will:

Will Guyster is a 4th year rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary and is coming from studying abroad in Israel at JTS’ Schocken Institute and at The Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem. A child refugee born in the former Soviet Union, Will split his childhood between being raised on the much gentler streets of the Omaha JCC (Nebraska) by a community of Shoah and Stalin survivors who taught him the Jewish values of tikkun olam, bikkur cholim, resiliency, and love for his newly adopted country. Then as a teenager in Tampa, Florida, Will transferred his Soviet Refusenik roots into developing a passion for all things civil rights and LGBTQ rights-related; speaking up for universal human rights and dignity; and eventually carving a path towards the Conservative/Masorti movement in the molds of Rabbis Solomon Schecter and Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Will earned his BA in Political Science from Columbia University and an MS in Innovation from the D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University. Prior to beginning his rabbinic journey, Will spent a decade largely in Ghana and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, running social entrepreneurship programs and training local leaders and MIT students to do the same. At JTS, Will has become excited to begin Clinical Pastoral certification classes (Chaplaincy) – an outgrowth of his Soviet Jewish upbringing – and previously worked as a Chaplain intern in eldercare and as an educator with Camp Ramah. Will loves travel (having visited over 30 countries), horseback ride, and think about the bigger picture. His favorite Jewish topics involve studying Talmud, ancient Jewish history, Jewish mysticism, and finding new ways of connecting the Jewish people to each other, to the larger world, and to the Divine spark within themselves.

Will is excited to join the Orangetown Jewish Center as its new Rabbinic intern for 2023-2024.

PAST INTERNS

2022-2023: Ilana Sandberg (JTS Ordination Expected 2024)

JTS Rabbinical Student

2021-2022: Lindsay Goldman (JTS 2023)

Rabbi in Residence, Golda Och Academy, West Orange, NJ

2020-2021: Rabbi Jesse Nagelberg (JTS 2021)

Rabbi, B'nai Shalom, Olney, Maryland

2018-2019: Rabbi Jessica Fisher (JTS 2020)

Assistant Rabbi, Beth El Synagogue Center, New Rochelle, NY

2017-2018: Rabbi Jeremy Fineberg (JTS 2019)

Rabbi, Temple Israel, Sharon, MA