Fall River synagogue welcomes husband-and-wife clergy team

FALL RIVER, Mass. – Temple Beth El of Fall River, an independent Conservative congregation, has a new husband-and-wife leadership team.

Cantor Shoshana Brown and her husband Rabbi Mark Elber began their tenure as the synagogue’s spiritual leaders on July 1, according to a press release from Temple Beth El.

The couple was ordained as Jewish clergy from ALEPH: the Alliance for Jewish Renewal.

Rabbi Elber’s educational background includes a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania, graduate studies in Jewish mysticism at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at the University of Pennsylvania and certification in the teaching of Jewish meditation from Chochmat HaLev in Berkeley, Calif.

Cantor Brown earned her B.A. in English from Smith College, an M.A. in Bible from the Episcopal Divinity School and an M.Phil. in Midrash from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.  She also studied as a visiting graduate student at the Hebrew University and at Machon Pardes in Jerusalem.

Before coming to Beth El, both Rabbi Elber and Cantor Brown had careers in Jewish education on Long Island. N.Y.  Cantor Brown has served many congregations as a guest High Holy Days hazzan (cantor), including three nearby Conservative congregations – in Longmeadow, Gloucester and Northampton, all in Massachusetts.

Rabbi Elber, the author of “The Everything Kabbalah Book,” is a prize-winning poet.

Cantor Brown has been a contributor to “The People and the Book” column of The Jerusalem Report and is a contributing editor for The Journal of Synagogue Music.

Temple Beth El of Fall River: 385 High St., Fall River, MA, 508-674-3539