Staff

Rabbi Aileen Hollander came to Beth Chaim in 2001 as its Educational Director, and in 2002 she was appointed to be its Rabbi. Being a rabbi is a second career for Rabbi Aileen. First she was a teacher.

By the time she was 25, she had graduated from Penn State, taught fifth grade in Abington, earned an M.A. from Columbia in education of the hearing impaired, and given birth to the first of her three children. They are Lori, Sheri, and Eric. While raising her children she taught deaf children, substituted in local elementary schools, and was program chairman, Sisterhood Shabbat chairman, and vice-president of Temple Sinai Sisterhood.  

In 1990 she became an adult Bat Mitzvah.  She could read Hebrew, because she had attended an Orthodox Hebrew school where girls had not been allowed to have a Bat Mitzvah. While the adult Bat Mitzvah students were learning to read Hebrew, she learned to read Torah. She read Torah on Mondays and Thursdays for the morning minyan at Temple Sinai, a large Conservative congregation. She led that minyan for several years. 

She wanted to get better at reading Torah, so she enrolled in Biblical Hebrew at Gratz College. Four courses later, she had won the Hebrew award two years in a row, and the next Hebrew course was at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. The professor who taught that course encouraged her to apply for admission.

In 2000 Rabbi Aileen was ordained, along with an M.A. in Hebrew Letters and certification as a specialist in the congregational rabbinate. In 2001 she completed a year of clinical pastoral education as a chaplain at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. More recently she has been blessed with a son-in-law, Erick Trombley, and grandson Jake.

Rabbi Aileen enjoys developing meaningful relationships with congregants.