Rabbi Nancy Wechsler

Rabbi Nancy Wechsler

Rabbi Nancy Wechsler was ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1990. Her undergraduate degree was in Psychology from UCLA, and her rabbinical thesis was: Rabbinic Attitudes Toward Healing. After receiving ordination, she was called to Temple Kol Ami in Thornhill, Ontario, Canada, to be their first rabbi and provide a foundation for their congregation. She was a student at the Blanton-Peale Institute and Counseling Center in New York City. From 2003 to the present, Rabbi Nancy Wechsler serves as Rabbi and Cantorial Soloist at Congregation Beth Shalom in Carmichael, California. At Congregation Beth Shalom, she established a monthly Rosh Chodesh program for women (spiritual ethics), Mussar learning for adults, Family Education, and a lively monthly band service called "Shabbat with a Beat."

Rabbi Nancy Wechsler has also been pivotal in creating interfaith programs of understanding. She has fostered the Sacramento Interfaith Freedom Seder, interfaith Thanksgiving gatherings, and interfaith teen programs. Through ACT, Area Congregations Together, she rallied her community to extend the age of maturity for emancipating foster youth. She is a member of SALAM SHALOM, a monthly program of learning and sisterhood between Jewish and Muslim women and Interfaith Clergy work for social justice. Rabbi Nancy Wechsler engages in the ongoing education of mysticism, Kabbalah, and art. She studies cello and yoga. She received her Doctorate in Divinity in 2015. She is a past president of the Rabbis' Association of Sacramento and written about in Parenting Magazine and Reform Judaism. She has articles in the Mitzvah of Healing, Jewish Lights: A Women's Torah Commentary and A Woman's Haftarah Commentary, Torat Hayim-Living Judaism, LifeLights: Surviving a Crisis or Tragedy, and Three Times Chai: 54 Rabbis Tell Their Favorite Stories.