Rabbi Reena Spicehandler

 

Rabbi Reena Spicehandler has devoted much of her career to the Interim rabbinate, helping seven congregations in crisis resolve conflicts and clarify their identity, thus enabling them to create a new vision for the future. She is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Pennsylvania where she also served as Dean of Students and Admissions for ten years. Her undergraduate and graduate degrees are in French and Comparative Literature from the University of Chicago. Now “semi-retired” she has been spending her time editing and translating Hebrew texts, most recently some short stories of Israeli Nobel prize winner, Shai Agnon. 

She has extensive experience teaching both adults and children and is currently on the Executive Committee of the Philadelphia Board of Rabbis. As a student, Rabbi Spicehandler participated in Seminarians Interacting, a program of the NCCJ. This experience strengthened her life-long commitment to interfaith dialogue and prompted her to become a founding Board Member of the Interfaith Center of Philadelphia. Rabbi Spicehandler is fluent in Hebrew and French and has a reading knowledge of several other languages. She is also an avid dragon boat paddler, having been introduced to the sport by an Episcopal priest whom she met through Interfaith Philadelphia!

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