A few years ago, Simon Blechman discovered his great-grandparents were Jewish, sparking a journey to Judaism and, now, rabbinical school.

“Did you know that your parents were Jewish?” Blechman asked, which his grandfather nonchalantly confirmed.

“He said, ‘I didn’t think it was that important,’ but I found it very important,” Blechman said.

Blechman, who was not raised Jewish, then began learning about Judaism and looking into synagogues and the conversion process. He’s done a fellowship with GatherDC and an online fellowship with Hebrew Union College.

Living in Silver Spring at the time, Blechman decided to visit Temple Shalom in Chevy Chase on a whim and never left.

“We were greeted the second we walked in the door,” Blechman recalled of that Kabbalat Shabbat service. “People asked who we were and why we were there. By the end of the night … they made sure that we met the head rabbi because everyone wanted to make sure that the head rabbi heard my story.”

After hearing his story, Rabbi Rachel Ackerman helped him register for conversion classes, which started the following week.

“I had never felt that sort of love and care from people who I had never met before and had absolutely no connection to,” Blechman said.

The Reform shul’s Cantor Ze’evi Tovlev played a large role in helping Blechman convert to Judaism and the decision to apply to HUC. Blechman is now among Hebrew Union College’s largest rabbinical cohort in more than a decade.

“For most of life growing up … there aren’t people like me that are the face of anything religious,” said Blechman, who is transgender. “I thought, ‘I can be religious, but there’s not really a space for me up there on the bimah.’”

That notion was dispelled as soon as he saw Tovlev leading the Kabbalat Shabbat.

“I knew they were nonbinary, but I saw Cantor Tovlev and I was like, ‘Oh, there is legitimately a space for me in Judaism and for people like me, where I can be queer and I can be Jewish and I can be religious and whatever that might mean for me,’” Blechman said. “People say it a lot, but representation matters.”

Blechman’s initial plan had been to continue studying “along the rabbinical pathway” after officially converting to Judaism, even if he didn’t pursue rabbinical school. But Tovlev’s leadership, as one of the first openly nonbinary cantors, changed that.

“I just needed the little extra push to see that there really is a space for people like me,” Blechman said.

When Tovlev joined Temple Shalom in 2022, Blechman made an effort to get to know the cantor, “just wanting to talk to them about what their journey was like and what it could look like for me.”

“They’ve helped me along every step of the way to get here,” Blechman said. “Our numbers as trans or queer clergy are smaller than the overall numbers, but we’re a very strong contingent and I’m very happy to hopefully be a part of that.”

He’s enjoying “everything” so far about his first few weeks at HUC — the first year takes place in Jerusalem before students return to the States for either the New York or Los Angeles campus.

“Our classes are really immersive,” Blechman said. “I’m really grateful to be in Intro to Ritual Leadership, where they’re physically having us do these things because they’re expecting us to lead Shacharit services in the fall. These are some of the things that they’re preparing us to do.”

His professors have been hands-on in their teaching, namely in Bible history and cantillation.

“So much of this, even through my conversion studies, is still new to me,” he said. “I’m enjoying the opportunity to get to explore a lot of things that would be difficult to explore on my own, and I’m excited to be continuing that.”

Blechman’s peers have also been instrumental in his learning, offering help with Hebrew or understanding the basis of a prayer. Of his two roommates in Jerusalem, one taught cantillation to children and the other served as a university chaplain.

Blechman described the cohort of 28 students studying in Jerusalem as “very welcoming” and diverse.

He and his 27 fellow students in HUC’s Year-in-Israel program are among a total of 42 HUC rabbinical students in their first year, which is notable given rabbinical schools’ dwindling enrollment in recent years.

“A lot of what I hear, both about religion broadly and Judaism, is that people are falling away from it,” Blechman said. “People think that they don’t need [organized religion], but I think that the size of our cohort and the diversity of our cohort speaks to the fact that people need and want a spiritual home and a welcoming space.

“I’m excited to see what that looks like for us and what our rabbinates and cantorates can look like,” he said.

Blechman isn’t sure where exactly he’ll end up after his five years of rabbinical school, but one thing is for sure.

“My one goal for whatever my rabbinate may look like is to be a Cantor Tovlev for someone else, to stand up on the bimah and show one single person … see that they, for whatever their identities may be, have a space in Judaism and have a space in religious spaces,” he said. “That is my one goal. How I get there, I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.”

zbell@midatlanticmedia.com