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Gevura Davis
Sasha Rogelberg | Staff Writer
R Courtesy of Gevura Davis
ebbetzin Gevura Davis jokes that she and her family are
available 24/6, every hour, every day of the week, except for
Shabbat. But even that’s not completely true.

On Saturday mornings, Davis and her husband Rabbi Binyomin
Davis, the spiritual leader of Aish Chaim, a Modern Orthodox commu-
nity, host more than 25 people around the kitchen table of their Bala
Cynwyd home, where the lively group studies together.

Facilitating Jewish study and supporting community members in
everyday and life cycle events are part of the job of a rebbetzin, which
Davis believes is often misunderstood.

“A lot of people don’t understand necessarily what a rebbetzin is or
why it’s a title,” she said. “It’s not a job; it’s a lifestyle.”
As both the rebbetzin at Aish Chaim and an educator at The Chevra, a
10 FEBRUARY 9, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
group of 20- and 30-something Jewish
professionals looking for Jewish educa-
tion and connection, Davis is the glue
for her communities. Her responsibili-
ties range from teaching and speaking
nationwide about mikveh and family
purity to attending a school play for a
young community member to getting
coffee with someone in need of advice
or support.

Davis balances her responsibilities
with parenting five children and running
marathons with her husband. (They’ve
run five marathons in four years.)
“You’re helping people through their
marriages; you’re helping people with
the most intimate things in their lives,”
she said. “It’s unlike any other job really.

It never ends.”
Though Davis’ educational founda-
tions come from Modern Orthodox
values and traditions, many of her
students and over half of the congre-
gants at Aish Chaim do not identify as
such. The goal of Davis’ classes is not
to convince young Jews to practice
their religion and culture a certain way,
but to get them to care about being
Jewish. This generation of Generation Z and
millennial Jews is eager to ask questions.

Davis wants to break free of the rote
learning styles that can get stale.

“The essence of Judaism is choice and
free will,” she said. “… We want people to
be empowered with knowledge. We
want people to make educated choices
about how they want their family to look,
who they want to marry, how they want
to raise their kids. We want it to come
from a place of empowered and inspired
knowledge — not just because their
grandparents told them they had to.”
The answer to the core question of
Davis’ work as a Jewish educator — why
should one care about being Jewish —
didn’t come easily to her.

As a child growing up in Marietta,
Georgia, Davis was raised proudly
Jewish, but her parents, unaffiliated
with a synagogue or denomination,
were not traditionally observant. Davis
was one of 10 Jews in her high school
population of 450. Instead of attending
Shabbat services, she enjoyed going to
church with her friends.

At Emory University, filled with
existential questions, Davis enrolled in
a class on Holocaust education taught
by Deborah Lipstadt, now the United
States Special Envoy for Monitoring
and Combating Anti-Semitism. Davis’
father insisted that she take the course,
having a hunch that Lipstadt would
one day become famous. The class
changed Davis’ life.

“It opened my eyes, and I started
thinking a lot about existential
questions,” she said. “And I felt like I
was living a dual life: At night, I was a
typical wild and crazy sorority girl, but
then, during the day, I would read things
like Primo Levi’s autobiography and
watch concentration camp footage.”
The class made her think about life’s
purpose: to bring “as much light into the
world to combat all the darkness.”
Davis packed her bags and spent
a year studying abroad at Hebrew
University in Jerusalem. She gradu-
ated college at age 20, and from there,
her life snowballed. After graduating in
May, Davis made aliyah in June, met
her husband in October, got engaged
in December, and married the next
March. The couple had their first child
the following February.

After five years in Israel, the couple
felt pulled back to the U.S.

“At the time, Jewish education
needed a real revitalization,” Davis said.

The young family moved to Kansas
City, Missouri, for eight years before
settling in Philadelphia, joining Etz
Chaim, which later merged with Aish
Philadelphia to become Aish Chaim.

Just as their Jewish community has
changed over the years, the Davises
are adapting with it, offering music and
opportunities to interpret and find new
meaning in ancient Jewish texts. And
just as Davis found a revitalized Jewish
identity, she hopes the same for her
students. “Every generation needs a new spirit,
a new energy,” she said. ■
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com