Affiliations
Jewish Renewal – pan-denominational Judaism
Rabbi Jessica Shimberg received her s’micha (ordination) through Jewish Renewal’s Aleph Ordination Program in January, 2018, following eight rigorous years of study with a rich variety of holy teachers. She continues to serve on various committees with ALEPH and is a member of OHALAH, working regularly and gathers annually with rabbis, cantors, and rabbinic pastors from across the world and across denominations and movements of Judaism, which greatly enriches her rabbinate and her ability to help vision and guide the Jewish future.
Rabbi Jessica found T’ruah early in her rabbinical career when she traveled with T’ruah rabbis to Immokalee, Florida. There, and across the country, T’ruah partners with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworker-led organization that has accomplished extraordinary change and continues to work with consumers to ensure justice and dignity for those who bring food to our table. In her years of work with the CIW and T’ruah, Rabbi Jessica has honed skills critical to being an effective ally in activism for justice, dignity, and access for those whose voices have been underrepresented. A member of T’ruah’s Shofar Society, she participates regularly in local and national efforts.
Rabbi Jessica is the founding spiritual leader of Kehilat Sukkat Shalom (originally The Little Minyan). The Kehilah (Hebrew for “community”) grew from a small group with a shared desire to re-image and create sacred Jewish community for the 21st century in Columbus, Ohio. Over the course of 16 years, Rabbi Jessica served as a catalyst and eventually became the “home-grown rabbi” of the Kehilah until her move to Nashville in 2020. Sukkat Shalom continues to operate as a lay-led community which values social justice activism, grassroots organizing, spiritual growth, a multi-generational approach to learning, and cultivating Jewish environmentalism.
Although not ordained through the Reconstructionist movement, Rabbi Shimberg is a long-time student of Reconstructionist thought and was at the center of Sukkat Shalom’s early affiliation with the Reconstructionist movement in 2009. She continues to resonate with the egalitarian prayer language and the theological reasoning and philosophies of Reconstructionism and incorporates the liturgy as offered in the Kol HaNeshamah siddurim and machzor into the worship she leads as well as her personal prayer practice.