Nikki DeBlosi
As Nikki’s colleague at NYU, I have seen firsthand how her presence has transformed our student community. In the three years since she was hired, she’s grown our Reform student community tenfold. She is a patient, wise and rigorously pluralist educator, and has even taught a seminar on sex, love and romance in Jewish tradition. Students seek out her mentorship daily to discuss their breakups, their triumphs, their spiritual seeking, and their deepest concerns. What inspires me most is her ability to be a rabbi for a religiously diverse community, rather than just for the Reform-identified students with whom she works most closely. She is equally beloved by students who are Orthodox, Conservative, “just Jewish,” “postdenominational,” fraternity members, sensitive artists, and buttoned-up business students.
— Erica Frankel
+1 other nomination
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
