Really? You Want to Be a Rabbi?
By Norma Libman
Rabbi Josie Boskoff, the new rabbi at Nahalat Shalom in Albuquerque, did not attend Hebrew School as a child. Her parents didn’t want her to. Despite the fact that her great-great-grandfather had been a cantor in England, they were not interested in religion and did not encourage Josie to be interested either. Spoiler alert: They were really surprised when she said she wanted to be a rabbi. But more about that later.
Rabbi Josie was born in New York City, 34 years ago, and grew up in Westchester, New York. “My family wasn’t religious,” she says. “I actually begged my parents to let me go to Hebrew School, but they thought I just wanted to have a party for my Bat Mitzvah. It wasn’t until I was in college that I began flirting with organized religion.”
She studied theater and worked as a stage manager in San Francisco and Washington, DC. She loved to cook and started inviting people over for Shabbat dinners and holidays. And every time she entertained she made more Jewish connections and learned more about the religion and the food. But it was Covid, of all things, that turned the tide for her.
“Friday nights and Saturdays are big days in the theater business,” she says, “so I was sort of trying to find a way to get out of my theater job and get more into the Jewish community. And then I lost my theater job in March of 2020 because of the pandemic. And when I lost my job I dove into Jewish learning on line. And there was so much available because of Covid.”
One Friday night, she says, she was watching a rabbi and she thought, “wow, in a different lifetime that could have been a really good job for me, being a rabbi.” But at first she dismissed the thought. It wasn’t until she went to Jerusalem in August of 2022, and started to study there, that she began to think that maybe it could happen in this lifetime.
After that realization, the soon-to-be Rabbi Josie enrolled in Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia. In all, she studied for two years in Jerusalem, two years in Philadelphia, and completed her formal education in a fifth year on Zoom in Albuquerque. She had met her wife, Elianna, who was a big influence on her Jewish education, in Jerusalem. Elianna grew up in Albuquerque, a member of Congregation B’nai Israel, so they decided to settle here to be near family. Josie worked during her last year in rabbinical school as a student rabbi at Nahalat Shalom, and was ordained on May 26th of this year in Philadelphia. She was then hired by Nahalat Shalom as their full-time rabbi.
Back to her parents. They were, indeed, surprised at Josie’s choice but, Josie says, “the years of school gave them time to get used to it. They got to see how my interest in theater and academia and people had come together and brought me to this place. I think they were pleasantly excited to see how I had come to this work.”
Rabbi Josie spent much of her time in Jerusalem studying Torah, but she was also engaged in activism in the West Bank while she was there. She’s been back to visit twice since she moved here, and says things are more dire and bleak now than before. “These are real people living in challenging conditions,” she says. “I feel privileged to know peoples’ lives and realities. I hold on to my faith and hope that things will get better. My wife and I are a team. We both teach; we help each other. We have to continue to believe that peace is still possible. We pray that peace and justice will prevail for everyone: Israel, Palestine, Iran, America, everyone.”
The spread of antisemitism she says, “is scary and painful. We keep ourselves safe by knowing our neighbors, by acknowledging and showing up for other persecuted peoples. The way to safety is through shared support of one another.”
Rabbi Josie moves into her new home at Nahalat Shalom as we all prepare for the coming of the High Holy Days. “I feel privileged and honored and lucky to be able to serve this community,” she says. “I feel gratitude for all they’ve done, especially Rabbis Lynn Gottleib and Deborah Brin before me. I feel such warmth and hospitality in serving a community that’s so heimish, and that welcomes a feminist rabbi. We focus on supporting one another. And it’s important to me as a feminist to serve where all three rabbis were and are women.”
Norma Libman is a journalist, author and educator, a member of Congregation Albert and a New Mexico Jewish Historical Society board member. Her award-winning books include "Lonely River Village" about the secret writing Chinese women wove into household linens, "The Story of the Story" about her more than 500 published articles, many for the Chicago Tribune, and "Hannah's Day at School," for young readers. Learn more about Norma at http://www.normalibman.com/index.html.
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