Spencer L. Mandell

Rabbi Spencer Mandell joins Congregation Beth Emeth with a deep love for Reform Judaism, a passion for inclusive justice, and a belief that a universalist, moral, progressive, Jewish movement is an eternal, living conversational covenant that every generation is called on to continue faithfully.

Born in South Florida to an interfaith family, and formed Jewishly in Cincinnati, Rabbi Mandell traces his rabbinic sensibilities to his childhood, and adolescence studying and praying at Isaac M. Wise Temple, named after the same foundational rabbi of Beth Emeth. 

Rabbi Mandell has family who worked at Cincinnati Ohio’s American Jewish Archives, and has other clergypeople in his family. Rabbi Mandell came to understand Jewish memory as a sacred religious, literary, material transmission of Torah trust, learning from historic teachers that Rabbi Mandell tries to see his own life as one small link of, in the long chain of Israeliteish and progressive Jewish religious traditions.

Rabbi Mandell’s path into Jewish leadership began at Camp Livingston, an independent, Jewish summer camp, unaffiliated with the URJ, where Rabbi Mandell served as a prayer leader, and song leader for many summers. Rabbi Mandell served as a unit head for groups of campers, leading hikes and camping trips around the midwest, and once to Israel. Rabbi Mandell’s travels continue to inspire his ongoing love for the natural world and animals.

Rabbi Mandell learned that Judaism flourishes when it is joyful, communal, and sung aloud beautifully, and honestly. Rabbi Mandell has spent many years studying, and has served as a Jewish music teacher and song leader at religious schools and at summer camps. Rabbi Mandell loves drawing on his musical talents as one mode of spiritual engagement, helping him create new expressions of Judaism’s moral teachings, while helping others worship the God of our ancestors.

Rabbi Mandell earned his Bachelor of Arts in Communications and Judaic Studies from the University of Cincinnati (2019) and was ordained at the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion, in New York City (2026). Throughout Rabbi Mandell’s studies, he has served as a musical hospital chaplain at the Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati, accompanying patients through illness with presence and song. Rabbi Mandell’s rabbinic training also brought him to Kolot Chayeinu in Brooklyn, where he taught children and shared his gift of song. Rabbi Mandell also worked at Temple Tikvah in New Hyde Park, Long Island, where he served the congregation in a musical and educational role. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Rabbi Mandell served as a songleader, and BBYO city Director programming at the Mayerson JCC in Cincinnati. During the pandemic, and throughout all of his teaching pulpits, Rabbi Mandell has learned about the importance of music for people of all ages searching for hope, strength, and love in life.

Across these experiences Rabbi Mandell maintains a disciplined, and steady commitment to telling the truth to every person, and especially to God. Rabbi Mandell believes that building a progressive Judaism for everyone, means relying on our traditions to help us each learn to be honest, moral and radically welcoming, transforming into the best version of ourselves we can be. Rabbi Mandell hopes to help make Beth Emeth a Jewish community that widens the tent of our great Hebrew tradition, believing that “we” is a word that belongs universally to all children of God.

Rabbi Mandell is honored to join Congregation Beth Emeth, a House of Truth, one of the oldest and most historic American Jewish congregations leading this nation’s largest Jewish movement. Rabbi Mandell brings progressive Jewish and American dreams, an eager heart, and lots of passion with him, as he is excited to work with you, and continue building Congregation Beth Emeth into a Jewish community, that helps heal our broken world for the next generation, building, and praying for a better future coexisting, sharing, and loving the abundance of God’s blessings together.