MEET

Rabbi Dena Shaffer

Rabbi Dena is a visionary and experienced Jewish leader. Driven by her appreciation for the modern relevance of Jewish wisdom and a sense of gratitude for her own formative spiritual and educational experiences, Rabbi Dena takes pride in working to improve the lives of young people and the adults who care about them and raising the profile of teenagers as a Jewish communal priority. She joined the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative team in 2021 as the Director of Learning and Engagement after having previously served as the campus rabbi with Cornell University Hillel, Associate Rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel in West Hartford, CT and, most recently, as the Executive Director of one of our ten local initiatives, 4Front Baltimore. In addition to her Rabbinic ordination, she holds a Certificate in Jewish Education for Adolescents and Emerging Adults through the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and has expertise in adolescent development, experiential education, relationship building, and community structural change.