Our Rabbi Schorr : Rebecca Yaël Schorr

Rebecca Yaël Schorr is the first rabbi to serve as the Associate Rabbi of our congregation. Her election to this position is a historical one as no other female rabbi has shared the pulpit with her father. 

Rabbi Schorr previously served as Associate Rabbi of Temple Israel of Long Beach and as the Director of Jewish Education of the Merage Jewish Community Center of Orange County, where her community-wide week of Jewish education program recently earned national recognition by the Jewish Community Center Association.

A native of the Holy City* of Cincinnati, Rabbi Schorr was reared right here in Fountain Valley, and is a product of the Congregation B’nai Tzedek Religious School, the Orange County Bureau of Jewish Education teen programs, and Fountain Valley High School.

Rabbi Schorr is a graduate of the Ithaca College School of Music, where she earned a Bachelor of Music in Voice.    During her time at the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, she balanced her rabbinic studies with electives in the School of Sacred Music and, as a member of the HUC Cantorial School Choir, participated in a program of Ashkenazic sacred music at Lincoln Center .

After completing a rabbinic thesis in Synagogue Business Ethics, Rabbi Schorr was ordained at HUC-JIR, where she had previously earned a Masters of Arts in Hebrew Letters.

Rabbi Schorr was recently elected President of the Orange County Board of Rabbis. She is a former member of the Board of the Women’s Division of the Jewish Federation of Long Beach and West Orange County as well as a former member of the Executive Board of the Pacific Association of Reform Rabbis.

Inspired by the Outreach work of her childhood rabbi, Rabbi Schorr has been an instructor of the community-wide Introduction to Judaism course. Her passion for outreach and membership retention was recently recognized through her selection in an inaugural Fellowship program sponsored by the URJ - CCAR Commission on Outreach and Synagogue Community. 

An avid reader of virtually every genre, Rabbi Schorr manages to carve out time in her crazy schedule for reading, traveling, and keeping her scrapbooks current. As a lifetime student of music, Rabbi Schorr studies voice with William Boocock and Cantor Evan Kent. In addition to all this, Rabbi Schorr just completed her first (and last?) marathon!

Rabbi Schorr and her husband Warren reside in Long Beach , where they are rearing their son Benjamin (10), daughter Lillian (7), and son Jacob (3).

Check out Rabbi Schorr's virtual double at www.frumesarah.com - the blog musings of a Reform Jewish rabbi and mother.

 * Cincinnati is the birthplace of the American Reform Movement