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, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
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.