Rabbi Rachel Benjamin

Rabbi Rachel Benjamin is currently serving South Bucks Jewish Community, and the Progressive Jewish Community of East Anglia in Norwich.

In her early life, Rachel and her family were members of the Beds-Herts community, where she also taught at cheder. She spent a year in Israel between school and university, working and attending an Ulpan on Kibbutz Ha’Ogen. She studied French and Hebrew at Leeds University.

Rachel worked in investments and finance for several years, both in the City of London, and in Los Angeles, before joining the Hebrew Union College Skirball Museum (in LA), where she worked very happily for six years, four of them as the Assistant Curator of Judaica. While there, she also did an MA in Judaic Studies, before returning to England in 1994 to pursue her rabbinic studies at LBC-CJE. Rachel was also research assistant to Rabbi Lewis Barth (University of Southern California course on Jewish Studies) and Dr. Tamara C. Eskenazi (HUC Bible Studies).

While a student at LBC-CJE, Rachel worked as copy editor of the journal, European Judaism, and was on the planning team for the annual Jewish-Christian Bible Week in Bendorf, Germany.

Rachel was ordained in 1998, and served Northwood & Pinner Liberal Synagogue for six years, as Assistant, and then Associate, Rabbi. She has acted as a supply teacher of Bible Studies at LBC-CJE, and copy editor of the Tanakh volumes of Rabbi Sidney Brichto’s The People’s Bible. Rachel was also a visiting tutor at Heythrop College (University of London) during the 2003-4 and 2004-5 academic years, where she taught a core module in the MA in Biblical Studies programme, entitled ‘Jewish Interpretation of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible)’.

Rachel is married to Harry Davies, and has three step-children, and six step-grandchildren. Her interests include music and singing, and she led the creative music part of the LJ Day of Singing. Rachel continues to be involved with the NPLS Singing Group. She has also started a group at WPS and leads regular singing sessions at PJCEA. Rachel is a keen sportswoman, and is proud to have represented England in the tennis team at the 1999 European Maccabi Games (bronze medal), and Great Britain in the squash team at the international Maccabi Games in Israel 2001 and 2005 (silver medal).