Newsletter of Ohr Tikvah Jewish Healing Center

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 February 2009 / 5769

Perspective from Ohr Tikvah Community Rabbi:

Rabbi Robin Nafshi Reflects on her first few months in the position

By Rabbi Robin Nafshi

In October, I joined Ohr Tikvah Jewish Healing Center of Somerset, Hunterdon, and Warren Counties as its first Community Rabbi. The role of the Community Rabbi is to expand Ohr Tikvah's programs and services and extend its reach into the Jewish community, particularly to isolated, unaffiliated Jews with spiritual needs. When I first interviewed for the position, we imagined that I would mostly be visiting Jews in the main hospitals in our community, and perhaps a few nursing homes. Never did we anticipate from where the majority of the calls would come.

When I started the job, I sent letters to all of the hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and jails in the area letting them know about Ohr Tikvah and my availability to visit patients, residents, and inmates. Almost immediately, I began receiving phone calls and e-mails.

In actuality, hospitals are the least frequent of my visits. With managed health care, patients are in and out of hospitals quite quickly. Sometimes I manage to see someone before he or she is discharged, but not always. The afternoon following a referral from a hospital chaplain I found that the patient had already been discharged. However One week, I received a call from a hospital chaplain on a Friday telling me that he had a Jewish patient who wished to speak to a rabbi. I went over to the hospital the next afternoon following Shabbat services. She had already been discharged. However, I did later visit with her in a nursing home rehab unit.

I have been making visits to a handful of nursing homes. A few of the nursing homes in our area are owned or managed by Jews, and families looking for a long care facility sometimes discover this in doing their research.  These nursing homes have meaningful numbers of Jewish residents.

The bulk of my visits have not been to hospitals or nursing homes, however. They have been to facilities that house or serve Jews who might otherwise fall through the cracks. I have been to Hagedorn Psychiatric Hospital in Glen Gardner a couple of times, including once to provide a Chanukah program. Together with Jewish Family Services, I’ll be providing holiday programs for Somerset ARC (serving individuals with developmental disabilities). I’ll be making pastoral visits to the Jewish residents of a drug and alcohol residential treatment facility that is considered a facility of last resort for people who have been through many other facilities but have been unable to stay clean and sober. And I’ll be providing monthly Shabbat services and pastoral counseling for the Jewish inmates at the Edna Mann Correctional Facility for Women in Clinton.  

I an honored to serve as the Ohr Tikvah Community Rabbi, and I am proud that Ohr Tikvah is reaching Jews in long-term facilities to provide whatever counseling, support, learning, and other services we can. If you know someone in need of Ohr Tikvah’s programs, please call 908-725-6994, visit www.ohrtikvahjhc.org,, or e-mail rabbi.nafshi@jewishhealingcenterofwcnj.org.