CC alum sojourns to Jerusalem

Emily Huebscher ’05 in Israel.

Inspired by the rabbis she knew growing up in Lexington, Mass. and by the peers in her Jewish youth group, Emily Huebscher ’05 has aspired to becoming a rabbi since the eighth grade. A month after graduating from Connecticut College in May, she traveled to Jerusalem for the fourth time to pursue her dream.

“I believe it is the ideal profession, combining teaching, mentoring, celebrating, and helping,” she wrote in a recent e-mail from Jerusalem.

Huebscher, who majored in classics and minored in religion and art while at CC, is a first-year student in the rabbinical program at Hebrew Union College — Jewish Institute of Religion. The program takes five years to complete with students spending their first year in Jerusalem and the next four in New York, Cincinnati, or Los Angeles. Huebscher is taking courses on a range of subjects, from Hebrew and biblical grammar to rabbinical literature and history.

“The year in Israel strengthens our Hebrew skills and helps us develop an understanding of Israeli culture and the history of the land,” she wrote.

Huebscher’s academic interests go beyond the bounds of the program. She also is taking a course on “Women and Halakah (Jewish law)” and has become active with a women’s prayer group to raise awareness of trends in religious pluralism. Called “Women of the Wall,” the group meets monthly at the Western Wall, which is divided into a large section for men and a smaller one for women.

“When we pray out loud, which is acceptable legally, we are screamed at by men and shushed by women,” she wrote.

Living in Jerusalem has not taken much getting used to for Huebscher. She has visited the city before with her family and youth groups and she spent the first semester of her senior year in high school there, participating in an international exchange program. She has found that her daily life is not entirely different from her college experience: she lives in an apartment with two roommates and balances her time between, home, school and the gym.

“One of the major differences here is security — I feel so safe because most stores and restaurants have guards at the entrance that check for weapons and army service is mandatory so there are soldiers guarding the major streets.” But Jerusalem, she wrote, is mostly like any other city and some of the biggest differences are the little things. “There are few cars on the road on Shabbat (Saturday, the day of rest) and many restaurants are Kosher. Also, it’s a lot easier to get falafel than macaroni and cheese.”

During her senior year at CC, Huebscher served as housefellow of Abbey and River Ridge houses, president of Hillel and co-chair of the Classics Advisory Board. Those experiences, she said, prepared her well for this journey.