Our Rabbi

Rabbi Alanna Sklover

Rabbi Alanna Sklover joined our community at Or Hadash in the summer of 2019.  Prior to her tenure as Rabbi at Or Hadash, Rabbi Alanna served as the Director of Lifelong Learning at Germantown Jewish Centre.  Rabbi Alanna has served as Rabbinic Chair of the BuxMont Kehillah and is active in WFCA (the Wissahickon Faith Community Association).

Committed to the values of kehillah (community) and tikkun olam (repairing the world), Rabbi Alanna believes that Judaism does not happen in a vacuum, but rather it flourishes in moments of shared communal experience and when we live out our values and seek a more compassionate and just world. She is passionate about building Jewish spaces that are welcoming and inclusive of people of all genders, ethnicities, backgrounds, ages & abilities, and is an enthusiastic and creative teacher of Torah, helping people to encounter Jewish text and tradition in ways that are authentic, relevant and resonant.

Rabbi Alanna also loves to sing and brings her love for Jewish music and communal singing to her work at Or Hadash, blending traditional nusach (chanting) with mindfulness, rhythm, and melodies both old & contemporary to create dynamic worship experiences.

Rabbi Alanna graduated from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 2013 with a Specialization in the Congregational Rabbinate and is a recipient of the Rabbi Kenneth and Aviva Berger Memorial Prize in Practical Rabbinics. She holds a BA from Goucher College in Theater and Religion. Rabbi Alanna and her wife Rebecca Kirzner live in Mt. Airy with their two children, Bina and Tani (& their cat, Annie).

Education Director & Executive Director

Rabbi Erin Hirsh, DD

Rabbi Erin is a warm, insightful and talented Jewish educator. Rabbi Erin believes all Jewish education should and can be engaging, relevant and meaningful for everyone involved and she is never satisfied with anything less. She brings a wide-range of talents and experiences to her work and loves to bring them all to bear on everything she does as both our Education Director and our Executive Director.

Or Hadash’s SMILE School is actually the third Reconstructionist congregational school Rabbi Erin has directed. In addition to directing individual schools, Rabbi Erin served as the Director of Congregational Education for the Reconstructionist Movement for six years. In that role, she was the primary educational consultant to 100 Reconstructionist congregations, designed TEL, an experiential teen program for Reconstructionist teens from ten congregations (including Or Hadash), supervised the curriculum for Camp JRF (now Camp Havaya), and mentored rabbis and educators across North America.

Rabbi Erin then worked at Gratz College, where was a member of the Executive Leadership Team. she created a national professional learning program for supplementary school teachers, a mentorship program for supplementary school teachers in Greater Philadelphia, and directed the Jewish Community High School. Rabbi Erin secured funding for many of her projects through grant-writing and donor cultivation.​ Her time at Gratz culminated with her service as Interim President from 2017 – 2018. ​Rabbi Erin has secured funding for many of her projects through grant-writing and donor cultivation.​

In 2021, Rabbi Erin decided she wanted to work directly with the students, parents and faculty in one community and was amazed to discover that Or Hadash was looking for an new Education Director. Rabbi Alanna has been a friend and colleague of Rabbi Erin’s for over 25 years. They worked together in many different capacities before Or Hadash. Rabbi Erin and Rabbi Alanna have a wonderful partnership and their skills and passions complement each other beautifully.

Although Rabbi Erin came to Or Hadash to be our Education Director, we quickly realized that the executive administrative skills she cultivated working for the Reconstructionist movement and at Gratz College could address many of our organizational needs. In 2024, we created the position of Executive Director.

Support Staff

Alexia Singletary

Alexia is our Saturday shammes. Shammes means Helper (think of the shammash, or helper candle, on a Hanukkah menorah). Alexia helps manage our hospitality services. She helps everyone feel welcome, comfortable (and well fed!) on Saturday mornings at Torah study, services and kiddushes.

Support Staff

Waynette Nichols

Waynette is our Friday shammes. Shammes means Helper (think of the shammash, or helper candle, on a Hanukkah menorah). Waynette helps manage our hospitality services. She helps everyone feel welcome, comfortable (and well fed!) on Friday evenings after Kabbalat Shabbat services.

Hannah Lowry

Administrative Assistant for Bookkeeping

Shira Prusky

Administrative Assistant for Communications

Support Staff

Albert Thompson

Albert has been our custodian for more than 30 years! He keeps our beautiful building clean and orderly. You can find him in the building on Monday and Friday mornings.

Choir Director

Debbie Pollock Dekalb

Is director of the Makaylah High Holiday Choir. 

Rabbi Emeritus

Rabbi Josh Waxman

Rabbi Joshua Waxman served as rabbi of Or Hadash: A Reconstructionist Congregation from 2004-2019. He graduated from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 2003. Before attending RRC, he studied Russian History and Literature at Harvard University, worked with progressive Jewish communities in the former Soviet Union, and lived and studied in Israel. He has served on the faculty of RRC in the Department of Biblical Civilizations and currently serves as a director in the Spiritual Direction program for rabbinical students. He was a featured columnist for the popular Virtual Talmud series on Beliefnet.com and was a board member of the Jewish Social Policy Action Network.  He also served as Rabbinic Chair for the Kehillah of Bux-Mont and on the Executive Committee of the Va’ad Board of Rabbis of Greater Philadelphia. Rabbi Josh is now the rabbi of Temple Beth Rishon and lives in New Jersey with his wife, Aimée, and their three children, Tzvi, Yael, and Adir.

Founding Rabbi

Rabbi Vivian Schirn

“What? You can’t be serious! Four student rabbis for six families? That amounts to 1 ½ families per rabbi.” So began my “love affair” with Or Hadash, known then as the CRRC. Read more about the founding of Or Hadash.

From one surprise/crazy idea/experiment to another, I found the openness and willingness to take risks perfectly suited to my rather unconventional ways. These 6 families, with their strong belief in Reconstructionst ideas and with their deeply held dream of creating a new type of congregation, energized the four of us, and the surrounding community. It was not long before the chapel of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College began to fill up with the curious, the observant, the assimilated, the disenchanted, the believer, the atheist, and the questioner. I became eager to learn enough so that I could supply the congregants with what they were seeking.

This was exhilarating for me, as was my realization that what I was learning at the RRC was being put into practice! Perhaps most important was the gratitude I felt at having found a form of Judaism and a congregation that dovetailed with my beliefs. Here was a group of Jews that wanted to question and explore, and that were passionate about reconstructing Jewish behaviors, thought, and traditions to make them more relevant and meaningful to their lives.

It is all this that continues to attract me to Or Hadash, to its Reconstructionist roots, and to the congregants who challenge and inspire me.

More than forty years later, you will still find Rabbi Vivian attending services and programs, offering her insights and providing historical context for everything we do.