Rabbi & Staff

Rabbi Chloe Zelkha

Rabbi Chloe Zelkha is drawn to Jewish spaces where we can both taste the world as it could be—full of spirit, alive with song, and grounded in care—and also practice being with things just the way they are.

Her earliest spiritual practice was watching her parents transform their home into a place where people could land—family from Iran, her parent’s closest friends, and many others gathering around the dinner table. That spirit of welcome and easy belonging continues to guide her work.

​She has spent the past fifteen years designing immersive Jewish experiences for both young people and adults. As the Fellowship Director at Urban Adamah in Berkeley, she led cohorts of emerging adults through residential, semester-long deep dives into organic farming, Jewish spirituality, mindfulness practice, and social action work. She began her career as a community organizer in Boston, training with JOIN for Justice and building youth power around environmental justice at The Food Project. 

Grief has been a profound teacher on her path. After a season of personal loss, Chloe completed a hospital chaplaincy residency at UCSF Medical Center, offering spiritual care to pediatric and adult patients and their families. When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, she co-founded the Covid Grief Network—now a project of Reimagine—building a national support system for people grieving loved ones. Through Atra: Center for Rabbinic Innovation, she developed and led grief retreats for those in mourning.

Rabbi Zelkha has served as the Director of Community Learning at Eden Village Camp and as a rabbinic fellow with communities across the country—including Centre College, Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action, The Center for Small Town Jewish Life, The Jewish Learning Collaborative, and in several synagogues, including at Congregation Kehilat Shalom in NJ, where she was the Sabbatical Rabbi. She was also blessed to learn Torah at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem – her favorite part of rabbinical school!

More than most things, Chloe trusts in the Torah of song and silence. A dedicated meditation practitioner, she has sat over 150 nights on silent retreat, and regularly teaches retreats, contemplative song, and classes for communities around the country. She also serves on the board of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality.

She holds an M.A. in Education from Harvard University, where she focused on transformative experiences in the specialized studies track, and a B.A. in Religion from Carleton College. A Wexner Graduate Fellow, Chloe was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 2025, where she was awarded the Pinkenson Prize in Rabbinics, the Sokoloff Writing Prize, and two Auerbach Grants for rabbinic entrepreneurship. 

Rabbi Zelkha recently moved from West Philly to Jamaica Plain with her husband, Jesse, and their two year old son, Akiva.

Rabbi Liza Stern, Rabbi Emerita

For over two decades Rabbi Liza Stern taught, inspired, and moved us. Under her leadership we became known as a congregation with a huge heart, keen mind, and a resonant soul. We are fortunate to have had 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 deepened our understanding of Jewish texts and traditions, comforted us in our sorrows and exulted in our joys.

Sophia Giordano, Administrator

Email: ecoffice@eitz.org.