H eadlines
Rabbi Gabe Greenberg to Lead Penn Hillel
L OCA L
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
RABBI GABE GREENBERG
assumed the role of executive
director at Penn Hillel on April
1, and had served as interim
executive director since Jan.

1. But in a sense, he’s been
preparing for the job for years.

“Taking this position felt
like just an incredibly exciting
opportunity,” Greenberg,
39, said. “As someone who is
passionate about the Jewish
future and about Jewish educa-
tion, Penn Hillel is the place to
do those things. The commu-
nity of alumni and parents
are just very supportive and
diverse, and this just feels like
a great situation to step into.”
Greenberg is the grandson
of a pulpit rabbi, and has tried
his hand at congregational
life himself — five years at
Congregation Beth Israel in
New Orleans — but has spent
the majority of his professional
life in Hillel. Prior to his time
in New Orleans, Greenberg
was the senior Jewish educator
at the Hillel of University of
California, Berkeley, and has
been at Penn Hillel since 2019.

He was originally brought on
as the director of the Jewish
Renaissance Project and
Rabbinic Innovation Fellow.

“Gabe has demonstrated
strong leadership skills and
brings a passion for educating
and engaging all students
around traditional and unique
expressions of Judaism,” Hillel
International President and
CEO Adam Lehman said in a
press release. “We look forward
to supporting his efforts to
sustain and grow the Penn
Hillel community and build on
its rich tradition of inspiring
young Jewish leaders.”
The Newton, Massachusetts,
native studied history at
Wesleyan University, later
traveling to Israel with the
Pardes Institute and Yeshivat
Hamivtar. Greenberg was
ordained at Yeshivat Chovevei
Torah in the Bronx, New York.

In the Big Easy, he served on
the boards of the Federation of
Greater New Orleans, the Jewish
Community Day School of
New Orleans and the Rabbinic
Council of New Orleans.

Today, Greenberg lives in
West Philadelphia with his
wife, Abby Streusand, and
their three children. Though
the majority of his time in
Philadelphia has been spent in
quarantine, he’s found working
with the students at Penn Hillel
to be a fruitful, energizing
experience. “Penn students are incred-
ibly driven,
incredibly motivated, eager, passionate to
learn, to grow, to build and to
be successful,” he said. “And it
truly feels, in a non-exagger-
ating way, that at Penn Hillel,
every day, we are helping grow
and support the next generation
of American-Jewish leadership.”
Greenberg replaces Rabbi
Mike Uram, a nationally
recognized leader in Jewish
education who left Penn Hillel
after 17 years in December to
become the chief vision and
education officer of Pardes
North America. Greenberg
said he didn’t know he would
replace Uram when he assumed
the interim role, but that he’s
grateful to have been selected.

“Our rigorous, comprehen-
sive search process confirmed
that Rabbi Gabe is the perfect
person to continue Penn Hillel’s
strong legacy and to lead the
organization’s next exciting
chapter,” Leora Zabusky, chair
of the executive director search,
said in a statement.

In terms of his vision for
Penn Hillel, Greenberg is
Rabbi Gabe Greenberg
Photo by Dina Ley
As someone who is passionate about the
Jewish future and about Jewish education,
Penn Hillel is the place to do those things.”
RABBI GABE GREENBERG
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still working out what the
post-Uram world will look like.

He’s diplomatic on the subject.

“I look forward to building
upon the legacy that Mike Uram
and Jeremy Brochin before him
and other fantastic Penn Hillel
directors before them have
built, and doubling down on
our commitment to serving and
supporting every Jewish student
at Penn regardless of their
background, affiliation or knowl-
edge base,” Greenberg said.

Penn Hillel, according to
Greenberg, is “one of, if not
the, preeminent Hillels in the
world,” and he has big shoes
to fill. l
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
10 APRIL 15, 2021
JEWISH EXPONENT
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



H eadlines
Soon-to-be 98-year-old Hits the Books
L OCA L
ANDY GOTLIEB | JE MANAGING EDITOR
IDA ROTHENBERG didn’t
have time to read when she
was raising her two daughters,
volunteering and working at
Saks Fifth Avenue.

But the soon-to-be 98-year-
old Wynnewood woman is
making up for lost time during
the pandemic, reading about 90
books in the last 13 months.

“It’s like a drug. I’ll only read
two chapters, look up and it’s
lunch,” she said. “I read all day.

I never gave it a second thought.

It’s just what I did.”
Her reading prowess first
garnered some recognition when
daughter Karen Seltzer posted to
a Facebook book group a picture
of her mother standing by a pile
of books she had read. Group
members and a few authors
began sending books her way,
feeding the habit.

“She was never a get-in-bed-
and-relax type of person, but
now she props herself up in bed
and has a stack of books with
her,” Seltzer said.

Rothenberg isn’t picky about
what she reads — “whichever
one is on top of the pile” — but
is a fan of, among others, Mary
Higgins Clark, John Jakes, David
Baldacci, Harlan Coben and Lisa
Scottoline. At the moment, she’s
reading an autographed copy of
the latter’s new offering, “Eternal.”
“I can’t put it down,” she said.

“It’s different than anything she’s
done before.”
Rothenberg can’t cite a
favorite pandemic book, but
she did praise Rabbi Lynnda
Targan’s “Funny, You Don’t
Look Like a Rabbi: A Memoir of
Unorthodox Transformation,”
which Targan sent her.

“I thought that was a fantastic
life she had and was having,”
Rothenberg said.

A native of Philadelphia,
Rothenberg grew up in Northern
Liberties, graduating from now-de-
funct William Penn High School.

After marrying at 18, she followed
her husband, Mickey Sobelman,
during World War II to military
bases in North Carolina and
Texas. At Laredo Army Airfield,
she visited the motor pool and
ended up getting a job driving a
transport bus with a tricky clutch.

After the war, the couple
moved back to West Philadelphia
and raised a family. Rothenberg
worked at Saks for 25 years
and volunteered extensively at
Deborah Heart and Lung Center.

Mickey Sobelman’s mother,
Sonia, was active in Deborah’s early
days at a sanatorium for tuber-
culosis patients, and Rothenberg
formed and was the first president
of a Deborah chapter in the 1950s,
Seltzer said. Other family
members have been active with
Deborah over the years.

The couple moved to Florida
in 1982, and Sobelman died
in 1993. Rothenberg remar-
ried, returning to Philadelphia
a decade ago after her second
husband, Harold, died.

Over time, Rothenberg has
gotten more and more into
reading. And with the end of the
pandemic in sight, Rothenberg,
who is vaccinated, looks forward
to resuming another of her
favorite pastimes — mahjong.

“I hope I remember how to
play,” she said.

In the meantime, she’ll keep
reading, with another book
sent to her — Richard Plinke’s
“COVID-19 House Arrest” —
next on her list.

“I’m just overwhelmed and
happy people are thinking of
me,” she said. l
agotlieb@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0797
Ida Rothenberg and about 50
of the books she’s read during the
pandemic Photo by Karen Seltzer
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A Whole Lotta Heart
APRIL 15, 2021
11