Rabbi Jay Perlman
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Rabbi Jay Perlman is a Senior Rabbi at Temple Beth Shalom. Since his arrival in Needham in the summer of 2003, Rabbi Perlman has been dedicated to nurturing a warm, vibrant, spiritually meaningful community. He is proud to share in this sacred service with many outstanding clergy, professional, and lay leaders.
Rabbi Perlman is active in both the Needham and the Greater Boston Jewish community. He is an active member of the Needham Clergy Association, including having recently served as president. He currently serves on the New England Regional Board of the Anti-Defamation League. He frequently dedicates two weeks during summer to serve on the faculty at the Union for Reform Judaism’s Camp Eisner. Rabbi Perlman has served as a rabbinic mentor for both the Hebrew College Rabbinic Program and the rabbinical school at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He is a regular teacher for the URJ’s “Taste of Judaism” and “Introduction to Judaism” programs and is a member of the Needham Coalition for Suicide Prevention.
Before coming to the Boston area, Rabbi Perlman served at Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis, MO. While there, he was awarded UJA Federation’s Rabbinic Award for outstanding community leadership. Rabbi Perlman was active in the development of innovative worship experiences, creative youth programming, and in working with the St. Louis Jewish deaf community. In addition, Rabbi Perlman was the founding Rabbinic Director of the Fleischer Jewish Healing Center of St. Louis.
Rabbi Perlman was ordained from the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion in New York in 1996. While at HUC, he was the recipient of a number of academic awards, including his selection as a Steinhardt Scholar for his work in informal education.
Rabbi Perlman is originally from the Boston area. He is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Brandeis University, where he received his B.A. in both History and Near East and Judaic Studies. Rabbi Perlman has participated in numerous study opportunities in Israel, including programs at the Hartman Institute, the Conservative Yeshiva, the Pardes Institute, Hebrew University, and through the World Zionist Organization.
Rabbi Perlman has a passion for teaching, learning, building bridges, and sharing the beauty of our Jewish tradition. He joyfully shares his life with his wife, Emily, and their children Liana and Jonah.
K-12 Learning At Temple Beth Shalom
Join Our Team!
We are always looking for talented educators to join our team! Our hiring process typically begins in March for the following school year and wraps up as soon as all positions are filled, usually by mid-summer. We post our job openings on Indeed, JewishJobs, and JewishStaffing. Below are descriptions of our roles and the qualities we seek in our educators. If you think this sounds like you, please email k12learning@tbsneedham.org!
ABOUT THE ROLE
TBS K-12 Learning Programs are facilitated by a team of full-time educators. This is not a typical “religious school teacher” position! As a TBS educator…
You will create opportunities for deep learning. You will plan thematic, project-based curricula and experiential lessons that are grounded in child and adolescent development and guided by Jewish tradition. You will help children and teens grapple with high-interest questions that invite them to participate in constructing their own learning.
You will foster deep relationships and cultivate a sense of belonging. You will work with small groups of children, creating an intimate setting for relationship building. With each group, you will engage in intentional community building activities that allow children to get to know one another and feel at home in our community.
You will be part of a team. You will work in small grade-level teams, supported by a curriculum coach, during paid time for planning and preparation each week. Together, your team will learn content on an adult level, craft curriculum, plan lessons, and reflect on the learning process.
You will form relationships with families. You will plan and participate in monthly Jewish Connection Experiences with children and their families outside of regular learning times. You will have opportunities to celebrate Shabbat and holidays together and to include parents in their children’s Jewish learning. You will send weekly email updates to families, thereby opening communication channels and creating additional opportunities for relationship building.
You will learn and grow as an educator. You will have paid time set aside for professional development. You will be challenged to develop your craft through group learning sessions, small group explorations, peer observation and feedback, and individual growth plans developed with your supervisor.
You will be treated as the professional you are. You will be a full-time salaried employee, eligible for all benefits. You will be immersed and invested in one community, without having to worry about piecing together multiple teaching jobs.
ABOUT YOU
If the following statements describe you, you are a great fit for a role at TBS!
You love young people and have working knowledge of child development. You are joyful, present, and relaxed with children and teens. You are curious about the child’s perspective and enjoy partnering with children to promote learning. You effectively manage groups, and you have meaningful interactions that make each child/teen feel like a valued member of the group.
Your teaching approach is rooted in experience. You have worked with children/teens in experiential settings, such as overnight or day camp, afterschool programs, and arts-based environments. You value and understand how learning happens in non-school settings, and you create rich learning environments that inspire curiosity and wonder.
You are guided by Jewish values and grounded in Jewish tradition. You are a role model for children/teens and their families through living and making explicit your Jewish values. You eagerly engage with Jewish practice, ritual, prayer, and holidays. You inspire children/teens to develop relationships with Judaism that are ever evolving and growing.
You are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. You model anti-bias practices and cultural sensitivity. You are excited to be part of a community that is diverse by age, family make-up, religious background, ethnicity, gender identity, and sexual orientation. You embrace each person as having been created b’tzelem Elohim (in the image of God), and you work hard to create environments where every learner can thrive.
You are an excellent collaborator and team player. You are eager to partner with and learn from fellow educators. You thrive in an environment that values learning, relationships, collaboration, and joy. You are flexible, adaptive, authentic, confident, and humble.
You are an effective communicator and relationship builder. You easily develop rapport and inspire trust. You have a warm, energetic, and authentic personality that translates to building lasting relationships. You demonstrate deep listening in your interactions with others and respond in a way that honors each person.
You are a reflective, emotionally intelligent learner. You are self-aware and seek to learn and refine your skills. You are eager for feedback and engage in your own ongoing reflective practices. You recognize your own emotions and are able to engage with them in healthy ways.
You are able to participate actively in children’s learning. Our hands-on, active approach to learning includes frequent reaching, stooping, sitting on the floor, bending, occasional lifting and carrying, supervising active play, and (with preteens and teens) travel via rental van, bus, train and/or airplane.
You resonate deeply with Temple Beth Shalom’s mission and values. You are motivated and inspired to be part of a warm, vibrant, and diverse Jewish community and close-knit, hard-working professional team.
