Rabbi Joel M. Mosbacher
Encounter is a profound and immersive experience that stirs its participants to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a new way. As Jewish communal leaders, we have easy access to the Jewish Israeli narrative. Through this sacred journey, on the other hand, we met people and heard personal and individual Palestinian stories that we would never have access to in another way. The cohort that traveled together was moved and by what we saw and heard, and we will use these experiences to broaden and deepen the dialogue on Israel/Palestine in the American Jewish community.
Rabbi Joel M. Mosbacher participated in Encounter’s November 2017 Intensive Leadership Seminar. Of his experience, he says: “I joined this journey because several of my Jewish communal teachers and role models were so deeply impacted by their experiences. Since I’ve returned home, I’ve shared the experience with my community, arranged to have one of the Palestinians we met speak in my congregation, and have begun to envision what else I might do with this heart-opening experience.”
Rabbi Mosbacher was born and raised in suburban Chicago in a Reform Jewish setting. He attended Jewish summer camp at OSRUI in Wisconsin, where he met my wife Elyssa. Rabbi Mosbacher attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, spent his junior year abroad at Hebrew University, and attained his rabbinic education at HUC-JIR in Jerusalem and Cincinnati. He and his wife have two boys– Ari and Lev. He has served congregations in Atlanta, GA and Mahwah, NJ, and moved this past summer to serve Shaaray Tefila on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.