Join us for Shalom Rav: A Celebration of Rob Nosanchuk and His Rabbinic Career when we will ritualize our rabbinical transition and congratulate Rabbi Nosanchuk on his retirement!
Friday, Dec. 5, Shabbat Worship
5:30 pm Early Pre-Service Oneg
6 pm Worship Service featuring our entire Mishkan Or Clergy Team. Guests are welcome. Join us in community as we wish Shalom to Rabbi Nosanchuk! The service will be followed by a celebratory oneg.
Please note, The camp-style song session and Havdalah on December 6 has been postponed. We plan to include this in the Sunday, April 26 gala event (see below) when Dan Nichols, widely-acclaimed Jewish rock musician, rooted in shared Jewish summer camp experience, and friend of the Berger-Nosanchuk family, will participate in honoring Rabbi Nosanchuk!
RABBI ROB NOSANCHUK – A Leader, a Teacher, a Friend
On January 1, 2026, Rabbi Rob Nosanchuk will retire from Mishkan Or. It is a time of transition for him and for our congregation as the greatest portion of his working energies have been dedicated toward the bold ideas that transformed Mishkan Or from idea into reality.
In retirement, his honored role will be: Founding Rabbi Emeritus, of our Congregation Mishkan Or!
Rabbi Nosanchuk received rabbinical ordination in 2001 at Hebrew Union College, earning two Masters Degrees from HUC-JIR, a Masters Degree in Jewish Communal Service (1994) and another in Hebrew literature (1999). He has been serving synagogues, and their affiliated youth movements and summer camps since his first job as T.K. (“the kid”), working as office assistant for his childhood rabbi as a young teen. He is retiring as a highly respected congregational leader and an innovative and deeply committed leader of Reform Judaism.
He has led our Mishkan Or clergy team with clarity, courage, and heart. Rob’s presence helped us to unite two temples he cherishes into one vibrant new “dwelling place of light.” He is Inaugural Will & Jan Sukenik Rabbinic Chair, carrying a strong bond with the Sukeniks whose family immigrated from the same shtetl in Belarus as the Nosanchuk family.
Leadership and Activism
On Shabbat Chanukah in 2010, his installation as Senior Rabbi at Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple was officiated by revered Rabbi David Ellenson z’l. He and his family had moved to Ohio where his spouse Joanie Berger was raised, from Virginia. Under his guidance, a then nascent merger of Anshe Chesed and Chevrei Tikvah blossomed into one unified temple community for LGBTQ+ persons and all diverse populations.
His rabbinate strengthened Anshe Chesed during what became its climactic 15 years. He invested greatly in lifelong learning, worship, and caring community, led hundreds to visit Israel, and hundreds more to pursue social justice activism.
He sees mentoring of young people as the “soul” of his rabbinate, and his record of building collaborative teams touched clergy, such as Rabbi Caruso, Cantor Lapin, Rabbi Muhlbaum, and Cantor Laureate Sager, and since our merger, to Rabbi Dadoun, Rabbi Klein and Cantor Sebo.
To read Rabbi Nosanchuk’s Sermons from the High Holy Days, 5786, click below:
His Compassion for Others
Rabbi Nosanchuk’s was greatly moved by Anshe Chesed’s key role as a founding religious institution whose purpose, in Rob’s words, was to “repair a despairing Cleveland.” He became a key leader in GCC’s criminal justice reform work.
In 2017-2018, Rabbi Nosanchuk served as a co-chair for GCC, partnered with Pastor Richard Gibson. But Rabbi Nosanchuk’s work in justice and human rights had long been part of his rabbinical work in previous temples, Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation and Baltimore Hebrew Congregation. In Maryland, his personal activism fueled debate and scrutiny that later helped repeal Maryland’s use of capital punishment.
In Virginia, his partnered work with Imam Mohammed Magid brought Jews and Muslims together to build understanding and share projects. He and Imam Magid together received 2010 Best of Reston recognition from Cornerstones and were named Washingtonians of the Year by publishers of Washingtonian Magazine in 2009.
A Cancer Survivor
When diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic cancer in 2019, Rabbi Nosanchuk continued to lead in the Jewish community. He also volunteered time to build cancer prevention awareness. Rabbi Nosanchuk, his spouse Joanie Berger, and their now adult children Zachary and Hope, established at the Cleveland Clinic the Berger and Nosanchuk Family Melanoma Research Fund, with twin purposes of advancing research to fight melanoma and also improving the quality of life for patients. He wrote about what buoyed him as a contributing author to the recent book, Sacred Struggle: Jewish Response to Trauma, edited by Rabbi Lindsey Danzinger and Rabbi Ben David, and also in his popular Cleveland.com columns.
Early in 2024, Rabbi Nosanchuk was thrilled to reach remission. By that year’s end, he announced his preparation for a 2026 retirement. citing his desire to savor what he calls his “bonus time!”
If you wish to send an email to Rabbi Nosanchuk, you can reach him here: Rnosanchuk@mishkanor.org
We also welcome to Interim Senior Rabbi Andi Berlin who will join us in January.