Rabbi & Staff

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Rabbi Liza Stern

For over two decades Rabbi Liza Stern has taught, inspired, and moved us. Under her leadership we have become known as a congregation with a huge heart, keen mind, and a resonant soul. We are fortunate to have a rabbi who is a dynamic congregational leader with extraordinary pastoral skills.

Rabbi Stern graduated from Vassar College and was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. She was a leader of HUC’s mentoring program for rabbinic students and recently ordained rabbis and has served as an associate faculty member at Brandeis University.

Rabbi Stern also is a leader of the Women’s Rabbi Network and the International Organization of Reform Women Rabbis. In recognition of her 25-year tenure as both a rabbi and insightful scholar, she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Divinity by HUC.

Rabbi Stern has raised five wonderful children with her husband, Rabbi Keith Stern. She enjoys tilling the soil and playing competitive ice hockey. As our rabbi, she deepens our understanding of Jewish texts and traditions, comforts us in our sorrows and exults in our joys.

Anne C. S. Kalis, Educator

Anne is an experienced Jewish Educator and Cantorial Soloist. She has served as Education Director at Congregation Eitz Chayim since 2018. Anne helps to lead Shabbat and High Holy Day services at Temple Beth Avodah (TBA), and has taught Hebrew and Jewish Studies there since 2013. She is a B’nai Mitzvah Tutor at TBA, Temple Beth Elohim and Temple Ohabei Shalom. Through her private business, Ceremonies by Anne, she works with unaffiliated families to teach Jewish Studies, prepare students to become B’nai Mitzvah, and officiate their private service.

Anne grew up in Milwaukee, WI and has a double degree in French and Secondary Education from the University of WI-Madison. She loves performing, travel, making challah, and all of her myriad jobs! She also loves LOVE so she got sworn in as a Justice of the Peace nearly a decade ago and has been marrying happy couples ever since. She speaks French, Spanish, and basic Hebrew; has sung in several semi-professional a cappella groups; performed for years in community theater; and even met her husband at auditions for a Jewish cabaret show in Chicago!

Now that both their kids are in college, Anne lives in Newton with her City Councilor husband, David, and their 2 Havanese fur babies.

Email: eitzeducator@gmail.com