Rabbi Gurwitz has had a peripatetic career. Originally from San Diego, California, he made his way east to work at Eden Village and eventually moved to Israel to study at a yeshiva. After making a stop in Baltimore to teach young children at the JCC Meyerhoff Early Childhood Education Center, he spent time in NYC at the Bronfman Center at New York University and as a fellow in the Office of Innovation at Hillel International. Next, he went to Pennsylvania to work for Muhlenberg College Hillel, finally settling in the NY Metro area with wife Joanna Gurwitz, a fifth grade teacher at Leffell, and their two children.

These diverse locales and experiences have had a real influence on Rabbi Gurwitz’s worldview and helped shape his feelings on creating community among Jews of different backgrounds and philosophies. Although his personal religious practice is “fairly straightforward,” his Jewish identity is an amalgamation that has been enriched through interactions with many different types of Jews. “It’s really exciting to be in a place where not everyone has the same Jewish defaults,” said Rabbi Gurwitz, “and where through conversation we learn not only about other peoples’ Jewish lives and living, but consequently our own.” The fact that The Leffell School embraces this same philosophy made it an ideal home base for Rabbi Gurwitz, who comes to the school from Carmel Academy.

Rabbi Gurwitz believes that Jewish practice and Jewish life should be meaningful and relevant enough that students have opinions and feelings about what they are learning. “We have this ancient tradition, this 3,000-year-old conversation, and I want anyone who is involved and engaged in that conversation to feel something about it.” These feelings might include simcha (which he defines as a deeper, more textured version of joy) or even wariness, but the enemy is indifference. It is only through this “messy theology” or “Jewish flexibility,” he believes, that young people can truly begin to create their own authentic Jewish identity.

Rabbi Gurwitz’s role as the Middle School’s first-ever Rabbi-in-Residence reflects Leffell’s commitment to providing students with a significant rabbinic presence. His goals for this year are to develop relationships with students, understand what is important to them from a Jewish perspective, and begin to tailor their experience to what matters to them personally. He plans to find ways to infuse the school year with experiential education, even with the limitations imposed by Covid-19. “I want to make Jewish life in the Middle School flexible, relevant, real, meaningful, joyful, exciting, and responsive,” he said. “Those are ambitious goals but as a staff we are all really committed to them.”