Jessica Spitalnic Mates

Rabbi Jessica Spitalnic Mates is a member of Cohort II of the Created Equal Educators Fellowship of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America and has served Temple Beth El since 2002. She coordinates adult eduacation and enrichment, including a variety of targeted learning programs for doctors and health-care workers, as well as “Project Nuremberg,” a continuing education program for attorneys that attracts hundreds of attorneys and world famous speakers annually, and through which she has built a partnership with Lynn University and the South Palm Beach County Bar. She is a participant in the Kathleen Brush Women in Executive Leadership program at Florida Atlantic University and during this pandemic conceived of and produced a “Creativity in the Time of Covid” hour long special starring comedian Judy Gold. 

Rabbi Mates has had works published in several books and publications, including Theological Terms in the Talmud, The Women’s Torah Commentary, and the website, “myJewishlearning.com”. She is an ardent Zionist, blessed to be in Israel many times as part of her fellowship with the Shalom Hartman Institute and as a tour educator for the Reform movement. She received Rabbinic Ordination from the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in 1999 and is a proud alumna of the University of Wisconsin. She is a native New Yorker who has worked in Jewish communities in New York, Chicago, London, and Jerusalem. She is married to Mitch and mother to Noah and Shira and stepmother to Rachel and Brianna.