Growing up, Valley Beth Shalom’s Assistant Rabbi Yael Aranoff dreamed of two contrasting careers — either becoming a veterinarian or a rabbi. She laughed at the memory. “I loved animals and I loved being Jewish,” she said.
Since dreams often travel crooked highways, after graduating from UC Berkeley, Rabbi Aranoff dove into show business. She spent nearly a decade entertaining audiences, working as a singer, actor, a director and writer.
Ordained last spring at American Jewish University, she is at Valley Beth Shalom where her grandparents, Rabbi Paul and Esther Dubin, introduced her to the community of the legendary Rabbi Harold Schulweis. However, Yael Aranoff actually grew up several miles away at Adat Ari El, where her mother, Judy Aranoff, has been the cantor for years. And her childhood best friend’s mother was Rabbi Leslie Alexander, then and now at Adat Ari El. She laughed again. “As a kid, it always was a no-brainer about a woman being a rabbi,” said Rabbi Aranoff said. “That was just what I grew up with.”
What she didn’t know at the time was that Rabbi Alexander was the first female rabbi at a major Conservative synagogue in the United States. “As a kid, I took it for granted. Now that I am a female rabbi in L.A., I am much more appreciative of that.” Rabbi Aranoff attended elementary school at Adat Ari El and high school to at Milken Community School, where she discovered her passion for theater. But when her sister went to NYU and began pursuing a career in theater, Yael thought “I am going to be different from my sister. I am going to have my own identity.”
While her love of theater deepened in high school, she was undecided about her path when she enrolled at UC Berkeley. As a freshman, she decided to major in history. But after one semester without acting, “I missed it so much.” Diving back into stage work, she made theater her minor.
“I fell in love with theater,” Rabbi Aranoff said. “The main reason was the storytelling, just to completely envelop yourself in this other world, in the character or even – whether it was musical theater, contemporary or Shakespeare – just communicating stories, creating these worlds and characters.
“There’s also the connection you get — with the people on stage and also the audience. It was amazing. I loved it.”
After graduating Berkeley, Rabbi Aranoff remained in the Bay Area for five years. She co-wrote and starred in a musical, and did some directing and writing, as well.
But at Edah, an after-school program that did Jewish experiential education, she taught elementary school kids Hebrew and English through acting. “I was always doing something Jewish as I was pursuing this career in theater.That never left me. I just didn’t think it was going to be my career.”
“I was always doing something Jewish as I was pursuing this career in theater. That never left me. I just didn’t think it was going to be my career.”
Returning home to Los Angeles, her initial intention was to dabble some in television. But she soon returned to theater work, landing working at Theatre Dybbuk and the Miracle Project, with actors who are neuro-diverse, autistic, Down Syndrome and related issues. Rabbi Aranoff taught a Jewish theater class there.
“I ended up doing a lot of Jewish theater,” she said. Nice but it was not enough. As her 30th birthday approached, she was working in theatre, but it was not her idea of a career. “When I was doing a lot of shows, I started to really miss observing Shabbat the way I grew up,” Rabbi Aranoff said. “I always kept kosher, the way I was raised, but as an actor, you are working Friday nights, Saturday matinees, and I began to really miss Shabbat. That was a big thing.” She started wondering why did she want to be an actor? She asked herself, “Am I actually doing the things I wanted to do?”
She could double down on the acting. “But do I want to work in a job I am passionate about? Or do I just want a job and I can do my passions outside of work?” She eventually realized she was someone who has to work in what she is passionate about.
What that was, she still wasn’t sure. To figure that out, she had a creative idea. She took about a hundred people out to coffee, one at a time. “People in jobs I could see myself in: lawyers and law students (my dad is a lawyer), cantors and cantorial students because my mom’s a cantor – rabbis and rabbinical students – people in entertainment fields. I was open to anything.”
When she began taking more rabbis and rabbinical students out to coffee, “I was getting really excited about what I was hearing from them. I just realized what I am passionate about,” she said. “The older I got, the more comfortable I felt with the Conservative Judaism I was raised with.”
At the beach celebrating her 30th birthday with friends, she reflected. Her mother and aunt had spent years as High Holy Day cantors at UCLA Hillel with Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller. Yael and her sister Ronit took over — for 15 years — after her mother became Adat Ari El’s cantor.
One day Yael Aranoff told Rabbi Seidler-Feller “I think I want to be a rabbi.”
“Finally,” he said. Shortly after, in 2019, she started rabbinical school.
Fast Takes with Rabbi Aranoff
Jewish Journal: What was your favorite childhood experience?
Rabbi Aranoff: All of the trips we took to Israel to see our family – they were impactful.
J.J.: What is your next goal?
R.A.: To support the feeling of community and home and inclusivity at Valley Beth Shalom.
J.J.: Your favorite moment of the week?
R.A.: Telling Shabbat stories to pre-schoolers with the help of two dragon puppets.
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