Rabbi Jacqueline Brodsky was born in 1945 and raised in Chicago in a Reform Jewish household. Since every nice Jewish girl was supposed to be a teacher in those days, she dutifully got her BA in French and English education at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, and started off as a high school teacher in the inner-city schools of Chicago. Travel adventures beckoned a few years later when she went to Israel for the first time in 1973. It was there that her Jewish identity began to awaken substantially. It wasn’t until 1993, after many years of teaching and leadership in her local Jewish community that Jackie was sponsored by Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield to become a candidate for ordination with Aleph Jewish Renewal. In 2000 she received her Master’s Degree in Jewish Studies at Spertus College in Chicago and in July of that year was ordained by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi of Aleph. Additionally, in 2004 she completed her 4 years of training in Clinical Pastoral Education at the VA-SORCC in White City, OR to become a chaplain. Most recently, in January of 2008, Jackie was certified by the National Association of Jewish Chaplains, the first rabbi of Aleph to gain that honor, and the first chaplain to be certified by the NAJC in Oregon. Rabbi Jackie began working with the South Coast Jewish Community in 1993 as a student rabbi after she met SCJC congregant Joanne Drapkin at an Aleph retreat that summer and found out that Wolf Daniel Braun needed a rabbi to do his bar mitzvah. The rest is history, as Rabbi Jackie has been working with the SCJC on a part-time basis ever since. For several years, she traveled to additional Jewish communities as well, notably Temple Beth El of Eureka, Temple Beth Israel of Redding, and Crescent City.
Rabbi Jackie also began working as a chaplain in southern Oregon’s Rogue Valley, with Asante Health Corporation (Rogue Regional Medical Center) since 2002, originally as a hospital and hospice chaplain, and since November of 2007, solely a hospice chaplain for Asante’s Hospice. Rabbi Jackie remains passionate about the State of Israel and honors that passion by organizing tours to Israel every few years through her company Mitzvah Travel. In addition, she is delighted to bring the PowerPoint presentation, “Challenge for Peace,” which addresses some of the common beliefs about Israel, and a prescription for a lasting peace, to other communities upon request. (See the information on these Israel activities on this website.)
Personally, Rabbi Jackie has been married to Ross Albertson since 1991, and has one son, Cole, three stepchildren, Sandy, Paul and Erik, and two granddaughters, Alyssa (daughter of Erik), Caylin Rose Schnitzer (born to Cole and Jenny on June 28, 2009!), and grandson, Eli Jaxon Schnitzer (he was born on Jan. 24, 2012) . For life cycle ceremony requests or Israel activities, you can reach Rabbi Jackie at lachayyim@yahoo.com