Fifth-year rabbinical student and 2021 graduate of the Zelikow School of Jewish Nonprofit Management’s MA in Jewish Nonprofit Management program (MAJNM) Madeline Cooper built the Makom Fellowship Program that was recently awarded The Covenant Foundation grant. She worked with Rabbi Dr. David Freidenreich to create the program at The Center for Small Town Jewish Life to provide practical training, intensive mentorship, and cohort-based peer support to emerging professionals eager to foster vibrant Jewish life in small communities. She began her relationship with the Center for Small Town Jewish Life in Augusta, Maine during her third-year student pulpit working with Rabbi Erica Asch ‘08. Madeline is passionate about their vision to build community that is accessible to everyone.
Madeline is from the Boston area and studies in NYC. What drew her to small town Jewish life? “I went to Dartmouth and became very involved in the synagogue there, Upper Valley Jewish Community. I knew I wanted to be a rabbi and go to HUC. After graduating, I spent a year living in the area and served as the community’s Director of Education. It was a really wonderful experience working with a wonderful community, but I also came to understand the need for support and resources that were much harder to find outside of major metro areas. I am interested in how to make systemic change in the Jewish community and how to make the Jewish world a more equitable place.”
Madeline channeled this curiosity into the MAJNM she completed alongside her rabbinical studies. She shares, “I was drawn to Zelikow because I knew it would give me the skills to do the rabbinical work I wanted to do. I thought having both skillsets would help me create the kind of rabbinate that I envisioned.”
Building Makom with Rabbi Freidenreich was her MAJNM capstone project. She describes, “Every other week we gave a presentation on our work and we received feedback from our classmates and different experts in the field. I feel very fortunate that there has been a wonderful network of people who have provided support for the project. What I’ve learned from this process is that we really are able to create the Jewish world that we want to see and live in. So much can be possible with the right support and mentorship.”
: Madeline teaching at the annual Maine Conference for Jewish Life (courtesy of the Center for Small Town Jewish Life)
