Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C., hired two new rabbis this past summer: Rabbi Anina Dassa and Rabbi Andy Weissfeld.
“For Adas Israel, we need energetic and visionary rabbis, and for both of them we found exactly that,” Steven Himmelfarb, president of Adas Israel, said. “Both are team players, which is super important at a place like Adas Israel because we have a pretty robust [congregation].”
Dassa is the new rabbinic fellow, a position the congregation created this year, and was ordained this past May. Weissfeld, the congregation’s new rabbinic director of education and Judaics, was born and raised in Pittsburgh but worked within the D.C. Jewish community at Ohr Kodesh Congregation prior to starting rabbinical school. Weissfeld said he wants to inspire children to live their lives “Jewishly,” like he was inspired by his rabbinic teachers growing up.
“People never ask a pediatrician when they’re going to be an adult doctor. I feel it’s really important that our youth have a strong rabbinic presence. So my friend who is studying to be a doctor said to me, ‘You’re just the pediatrician version of a rabbi,’” Weissfeld told Washington Jewish Week. “Growing up in Pittsburgh at my synagogue, [the synagogue] did a really good job making the youth feel included and part of the community, which inspired me to keep living Jewishly and ultimately become a rabbi.”
Himmelfarb described Weissfeld as having a “contagious level of Judaism.”
“At Adas Israel, we seek to have the best possible religious school experience,” Himmelfarb said. “We want our kids that go through our religious school to have a contagious level of Judaism. If you’ve spent any time [with Weissfeld], he’s got a contagious love, and we want to instill that into the kids of our program.”
Weissfeld was ordained in 2023 and served as the campus rabbi and senior Jewish educator at Texas Hillel in Austin before joining Adas Israel.
Himmelfarb said that the rabbinic fellow position, a common role in larger synagogues, was created to meet the needs of Adas Israel’s growing congregation. He described the role as a “learning ground for the future of Jewish leadership” and a way to help “mentor and mold” a recent rabbinic school graduate.
“It’s an investment in our community’s future,” Himmelfarb said. “Adas Israel has the good fortune and privilege to be a growing Jewish community.”
“The goal is the fellow is somebody that gets a lot of direct hands-on training from our senior rabbis and then goes out to the Jewish world,” added Himmelfarb.
Originally, Dassa went to school for music, performance and visual arts at the University of Michigan. She told Washington Jewish Week that her projects during her time in college were rooted in her Jewish values and traditions, leading her to the rabbinate.
“I think that there’s a really big spiritual crisis in our world, and people are hungry for a path or spiritual or religious guidance. Something that I’m here trying to figure out is what it is that people need,” Dassa said. “Our tradition has a lot to offer, so how can we use that to help others?”
Dassa, who grew up in Los Angeles, spent 14 years working at Camp Ramah in California and has studied as a fellow at Yeshivat Hadar. She has also worked as a preschool teacher at the Chabad of Tribeca.
“Adas [Israel] is a place that has amazing, wonderful rabbis and was a place that had a lot of opportunity,” Dassa told Washington Jewish Week. “It’s a really big synagogue, and there are a lot of resources. There’s a lot of different kinds of people with different needs and different wants, and it’s a place that allows me to be creative.”
“Both are very energetic and super-passionate,” said Himmelfarb, referring to Dassa and Weissfeld. “It’s the combination of all of that that made them both receive the unanimous support of the board and the personnel committee.”
