Rabbi Cantor Emily Ellentuck lived her entire life in Tucson, Arizona until 2024, when she moved to Baltimore to become the religious school director at Beth El Congregation.
When Ellentuck was in high school, her mother served as vice president of their synagogue’s board in charge of education. On the first day of religious school, she tagged along with her mother to help out as a madricha in a classroom, and Ellentuck instantly fell in love with teaching. “That was kind of it for me,” she explained.
She continued to work in the religious school’s classrooms while studying elementary education at the University of Arizona, minoring in Jewish studies and earning a certificate in Middle Eastern studies.
After graduating, Ellentuck spent a brief period working at a Jewish Community Center, running after-school programs and its Jewish day camp.
“I was the assistant director of the summer camp, and then the next school year, I started working full-time at the Jewish day school in Tucson, the Tucson Hebrew Academy, where I worked for 18 years,” explained Ellentuck.
Ellentuck began her career as a teacher of Jewish studies, tefillah and Hebrew, and ended up becoming the director of programming and community life before she left.
“Jewish education was a huge part of my life, but at the same time, simultaneously, I was also leading services at a congregation where I started as a cantorial soloist,” she said.
Ellentuck’s cantorial career for the next 15 years was at a now-closed synagogue in Tucson called Congregation M’kor Hayim. She also taught at Or Chadash and Anshei Israel religious schools before having children in 2008.
Ellentuck was encouraged by the congregation to receive her cantorial certification. So, in 2021, Ellentuck earned her certification as a cantor through the Cantors Assembly internship program.
“My cantorial mentor said to me, ‘now you have to figure out how to become a rabbi, because it’s important in this day and age that cantors are also rabbis,’” Ellentuck explained. “That would have been helpful if I wanted a pulpit position, which was not really my goal, but I wasn’t going to say no to more education.”
In 2022, Ellentuck became ordained as a rabbi.
Then, in 2023, her eldest child transitioned from attending a Jewish day school to entering a large public high school.
“There was no Jewish high school education available in Tucson, and it was kind of like a shock to the system, going into that very different environment and no longer having any opportunities for Jewish education,” Ellentuck said. “We looked around and we said, as much as we’ve loved being here and being invested in this community, the community which I grew up in, it was time to go to a community where we could continue Jewish education for our children and where I could continue in Jewish education professionally.”
Ellentuck said she had a long list of requirements for leaving Tucson, including moving to a place with a large Jewish community, ease of access to kosher foods and Jewish day schools from kindergarten to all the way through high school for her children. She added they didn’t want to move too north because of the cold weather and they didn’t want to live in a big city. “If we were going to uproot our family, it had to really be worth it.”
For Ellentuck, Beth El was worth it.
“From the first day of my interview weekend visit, I knew it was the right place to be,” she said. “The staff, clergy and members were all so warm and welcoming. I felt like I was home and in a place where I would be able to make a difference in the Jewish lives of the children in the community.”
Today, Ellentuck oversees the religious school, updating the curriculum, setting goals for the students, adding teen programming and creating exciting Shabbat programming for children.
In an interview, Beth El’s Rabbi Dana Saroken said about the cantor, “Whether it’s educating our kids in the classroom, or creating opportunities for them to engage in Jewish life and Jewish learning outside of the classroom, whether our kids are young or old, … her commitment to all of them makes our community stronger, and I think it will deeply impact our future.”
