Rabbi Shira Rosenblum considers herself a team player in every sense of the phrase. The competitive archer and archery instructor recently began as Congregation Har Shalom’s new rabbi, making the move from Jacksonville, Florida, to Potomac.
“Everyone has been so welcoming,” Rosenblum said of the Har Shalom community. “Everyone is friendly. They are just so excited for me to be here and are excited to get to know me, and I look forward to getting to know them and starting to work with them.”
“I am so excited about the wealth of experience that Rabbi Rosenblum brings to Har Shalom,” Rabbi Adam Raskin said in a statement emailed to Washington Jewish Week. “She is incredibly creative, loves synagogue life, the Jewish people and the centrality of Israel. Rabbi Rosenblum also possesses a superpower of remembering names, which of course communicates sincere interest in the people she encounters every day.”
Raskin added that Rosenblum has become an “enthusiastic member” of the synagogue’s staff team and community, which will celebrate the new rabbi with a Welcome Shabbat on July 12.
“[Rosenblum] has hit the ground running,” Carly Litwok, Har Shalom’s executive director, said in a statement emailed to Washington Jewish Week. “Before she even moved [to Potomac], she was Zooming in to staff meetings, professional development sessions, and touching base with me directly to make sure she was ready for day one. Her energy and love for Judaism and the Jewish people is palpable and we are so fortunate to welcome her to the Har Shalom community.”
“[During] the interview, it really just felt like a great fit,” Rosenblum said. “It’s a place I’d like to have my next chapter of my rabbinic journey.”
Rosenblum most recently served as a spiritual leader at Florida’s Jacksonville Jewish Center, a synagogue affiliated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, for the past eight years. She brings a long history of Jewish education.
Her first serious foray into archery was during college as a member of Brandeis University’s archery club. There, Rosenblum put in 12 hours of weekly practice, notably ensuring that she never shot on Shabbat.
“I just enjoy it,” she said of archery. “It’s one of those unique kinds of things that not everybody does, and I decided it would be an interesting thing to stick with.”
Rosenblum was the sole American archer at the 2017 Maccabiah Games, the world’s largest Jewish athletic competition, in Israel. Now, she continues to compete as her schedule allows.
Her roles as both a Level 2 archery instructor and a rabbi have some crossover.
“I love to help people learn things,” Rosenblum said.
Having practiced since 2007, she’s done archery trainings for various Jewish summer camps, mainly within the Ramah camping movement and within the Foundation for Jewish Camp. Rosenblum’s role is to train archery instructors at these camps to help them not only attain certification but also understand how to infuse Jewish values into the archery lessons they teach.
Rosenblum developed a curriculum when she worked at Ramah in the Rockies, a summer camp in Colorado. Those ideas and values have since spread to other camps too.
One example is lashon hara, the Hebrew concept of harmful speech. Rosenblum said people should be careful with the words they say just as an archer should be mindful of their equipment.
“We talk about safety,” Rosenblum said. “We talk about when you shoot your arrows, you have to be careful. You don’t know where they’re going to land, and the same with your words. When you say something, when you put it out into the world, you can’t always have control over where those words are going and you don’t know the impact that they will have later. When you damage a target, you can take the arrow back, but the damage of the hole is still there.”
Rosenblum is well versed in Jewish tradition, having grown up in the Conservative movement with a hazzan as a father and a Jewish educator as a mother.
“Jewish education and Jewish music were the background that I received from my parents,” Rosenblum said. “And living a good Jewish life.”
Originally from Highland Park, Illinois, she has lived in Chicago, New Jersey, New York, Boston and Florida. Rosenblum graduated from Brandeis University before earning her rabbinic ordination and master’s degree in Jewish education from the Jewish Theological Seminary.
She initially wasn’t sure what career path to pursue, but she knew she “liked helping people and being there for people. And I’m a good listener, or at least I have often been told that I am.”
“So I think that some of these qualities, the compassion, lead to this type of work,” Rosenblum said of the rabbinate. “I’ve found it very meaningful to be able to be there for people during the joyous times and also those that are more challenging.”
She enjoys teaching, especially Jewish skills, including services, prayers, rituals and traditions.
“I like to teach things from the Jewish texts in a way that’s interactive and engaging,” Rosenblum said. “We’re experiencing it and learning it in a creative kind of way as opposed to a lecture or talking for 45 minutes.”
She said she looks forward to learning more about the Har Shalom community and getting to know community members as not only congregants but friends.
“There’s a Jewish teaching that you should acquire for yourself a teacher but also acquire for yourself a friend,” Rosenblum said. “I’d like to be both of those things. I’d like to be your rabbi and your friend.”
