Har Sinai Congregation, the oldest continuous Reform synagogue in the continental United States has named Rabbi Linda Joseph, BA, MAHL, MAJE its new Senior Rabbi.

“We are delighted, honored and excited to have Rabbi Joseph join us and to lead us as our senior rabbi,” said Joseph DeMattos Har Sinai Congregation President.  “She is a brilliant thinker, a caring communicator, and passionate about meeting people where they are in their practice of Judaism and helping them to deepen their Judaic engagement.”

“Rabbi Joseph’s experience on the Bima, as an educator and as a counselor is precisely what we were looking for in our next senior rabbi.  Her joining us as we enter into our 175th year serving our member families and Greater Baltimore is truly bashert,” DeMattos said.

“I am thrilled to be joining the congregation and professional team at Har Sinai Congregation,” Rabbi Joseph said. “I have visited Har Sinai often over the last seven years often thinking, what a warm, wonderful and fabulous community. It is a dream come true to be elected to this position.”

Born in Melbourne, Australia, Rabbi Joseph was raised by a mother of Ashkenazi Egyptian/English heritage and a father whose Sephardi family   six   generations   before   had come   to Australia.  Her parents were affiliated with the Progressive (Reform) Movement of Judaism, which took firm root in Australia with the immigrants from Europe prior to and after World War II.

As a teen, Rabbi Joseph was involved in the youth group of the local temples.  She was among the group of teenagers that turned the youth group into a youth movement, called Netzer, which eventually became Netzer Olami (now the roof body of NFTY).

Rabbi Joseph is a graduate of Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) and was ordained in Cincinnati in 1994.  She continued her studies in Jewish Education at HUC-JIR in Los Angeles where she graduated with a second Master’s Degree in 1995.

Since ordination, Rabbi Joseph, as a World Union for Progressive Judaism sponsored student, served as a rabbi at what is now known as Etz Chayim Progressive Synagogue, and for the Victorian Union for Progressive Judaism in her country of birth, Australia. Back in the United States, she returned to a small community, the Jewish Congregation of Kinnelon in New Jersey, and then became the Associate Rabbi at Temple Beth El of Boca Raton, Florida.  

Following her time in congregations, she went to work in the Southeast Regional Office of the Union for Reform Judaism as the Senior Assistant Regional Director and then Regional Director After the URJ restructure, she spent five years building synagogue community and program at Beth Chaverim Reform Congregation in Ashburn, Virginia. Most recently Rabbi Joseph served as the Interim Senior Rabbi at Tree of Life Congregation in South Carolina. 

Going back a century Har Sinai Congregation Temple Oheb Shalom have shared summer services, and Rabbi Joseph will give her first sermon as Har Sinai Congregation’s Senior Rabbi at Temple Oheb Shalom on Friday, August 26, 2016.

Rabbi Joseph’s first service at Har Sinai Congregation will be on September 2, 2016.

Har Sinai Congregation in Owings Mills, Md., is the oldest continuously Reform congregation in the United States. The and offers Jewish Education, family programming, youth activities, adult education and social action activities among other congregational life opportunities. Rabbi Linda Joseph and Cantor Robert Gerber combine Reform Jewish traditions with innovative worship and learning experiences. Har Sinai Congregation welcomes people of all Jewish beliefs as well as interfaith families. (www.harsinai-md.org)