Sermons — Rabbi Thalia Halpert Rodis

Rabbi Thalia Halpert Rodis

About Me Kehillah in Shaker Senior Sermon: Tzipporah at Sinai Contact Me

About Me Kehillah in Shaker Senior Sermon: Tzipporah at Sinai Contact Me

Rabbi Thalia Halpert Rodis

Creating Vibrant Jewish Life

I carved a wolf woodblock and used the print in the final logo treatment, which included hand-drawn lettering.

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About Thalia

Thalia Halpert Rodis is a rabbi in Cleveland, Ohio.

She is passionate about creating intentional, vibrant community and rituals based in learning, compassion, music, and prayer. Thalia loves nothing more than to learn people’s stories, be with them in the ebbs and flows of their lives, and facilitate their growth. She believes one of the holiest things that a person can do is to listen to someone else and see that person as worthy of dignity and respect. Jewish rituals and life cycle events provide unlimited potential for people to come together and understand one another.

Thalia grew up in a multi-heritage Jewish home. She took part in her Jewish family's religious and cultural traditions and she learned from and admired her Greek Orthodox family's religious and cultural traditions. Thalia was raised in Brooklyn, NY and Glen Rock, NJ. In high school, she was Songleader and Religious & Cultural VP for her youth group, BarTY, at Barnert Temple in Franklin Lakes, NJ.

In college, Thalia served as the president of her Hillel for three years, working together with several multi-cultural groups on campus to create respectful dialogue and a rich cultural student life. She studied in Thessaloniki, Greece for a semester where she spent time with the historic Sephardic Jewish community and had the opportunity to volunteer teaching English to teenage refugees from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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After graduating with a BA in Cultural Anthropology, Thalia lived in Gwangju, South Korea where she taught English as a Foreign Language in two public elementary schools for a year. When she returned to the States, she worked at Barnert Temple as a pre-school and religious school teacher and she also worked as Communications Coordinator for her hometown of Glen Rock, NJ.

During her Year-in-Israel of rabbinical school with the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Thalia was a Shalom Hartman Institute rabbinic student fellow and she volunteered weekly at Hillel: The Right to Choose where she taught English and provided support to people who left the ultra-orthodox world to live in secular Israeli society. In her second year of rabbinical school in New York City, Thalia worked as a research & social media intern on the American Values Religious Voices: 100 Days, 100 Letters campaign under Rabbi Andrea Weiss.

In her third year of rabbinical school, Thalia worked at Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn, NY as community organizing rabbinic intern where she taught a 9th grade Judaism & community organizing class and she helped organize the congregation's Dismantling Racism Team around issues of mass incarceration and criminal legal reform. She then stayed at CBE in her fourth year as their rabbinic pulpit intern where she continued to work with the 9th grade class as well as a wide range of children and adults.

In her last year of rabbinical school, Thalia served as the student rabbi of Temple Beth Ha-Sholom in Williamsport, PA, worked as research assistant to Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman, and interned at CCAR Press where she created a study guide for the book Understanding Covenants and Communities: Jewish and Latter-day Saints in Dialogue.

After being ordained as a rabbi, Thalia worked at Cleveland Clinic Main Campus in different capacities over four years, working as a Chaplain Resident, a chaplain, an educator in training, and an ACPE Certified Educator Candidate. She provided spiritual care and emotional support to patients and families of many faith backgrounds and belief systems, and she enjoyed working with clergy students from all walks of life.

Today, Thalia is the Rabbi for Engagement & Learning at jHUB, an organization in Cleveland, OH that supports interfaith couples, families, and young professionals as they explore Jewish culture and values.