Rabbi Ellen Jaffe-Gill
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Cantor/Vocalist
As a sweet singer of Israel, Ellen has held clergy leadership roles at several synagogues: 
• Cantorial soloist, Temple Beth Israel, Pomona, CA, 2001-2003
• Cantor, Temple Ner Tamid, Downey, CA, 2005-2009
• Student rabbi, Bristol (PA) Jewish Center, 2010-2011
• Rabbi, Reconstructionist Temple Beth Israel, Maywood, NJ, 2012-2015


Ellen has also served as a High Holidays rabbi and/or cantor and as guest cantor in many different Reform, Conservative, and unaffiliated synagogues. A former member of Los Angeles’s elite Kol Echad and Zimriyah chorales, Ellen has sung solo pieces in concert with those ensembles and in several concerts with colleagues in the American Conference of Cantors. She has also performed in many programs of secular music: everything from Bach and Mozart to the Great American Songbook. 

Take a listen for yourself:
"Yism'chu" (folk melody)

"Avinu malkeinu" (Janowski)

Lecturer
Ellen has been a popular speaker in venues across the United States since Embracing the Stranger was published in 1995. Her public engagements include scholar-in-residence weekends and addresses at national conventions. Ellen has addressed synagogues as guest darshanit, JCC book fairs, temple sisterhoods and adult education events, and units of Hadassah, Brandeis University National Women’s Committee, ORT, and NCJW. 

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Some of the topics on which Ellen speaks or facilitates learning are 
  • Intermarriage and conversion to Judaism 
  • Amazing Jewish women 
  • Women of the Bible as Jewish role models 
  • Women’s expanding role in Jewish religious life 
  • Images of Jews in popular media 
  • Bringing about a vibrant Jewish future 
  • What Jews do and what Jews believe 
  • Sex and sexuality in the Bible 
  • Post-ethnic Judaism 
  • Jewish music 

Editor
Ellen is also a crack print editor. Early in her career, she was copy chief at The American Lawyer magazine and assistant news editor at the Keene (N.H.) Sentinel. More recently, Ellen has held staff editorial positions at United Teacher, the biweekly newspaper for United Teachers Los Angeles; The Hollywood Reporter; and The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. She has also been a writer/editor for Helpguide.com, a website devoted to health issues, and has worked on many different types of publications and projects, including full-length books, as a freelance editor. If you have a writing project that needs the eye of an accomplished editor (and/or writer), Ellen can help you get it into shape, whether it requires top-to-bottom rewriting or just a careful proofread.