Community Corner

Temple Beth Ahm Welcomes First Female Rabbi

Rabbi Lisa Malik, Ph.D. to begin leading services August 5

Temple Beth Ahm will be welcoming their first female Rabbi this summer.

Rabbi Lisa Malik, Ph.D., will begin Shabbat services on Friday, August 5 as the synagogue's next spiritual leader.

"Rabbi Malik was chosen after an exhaustive search that drew candidates from as far away as Venezuela. She was a top prospect from the beginning of a lengthy selection process, and we are thrilled that she will join us in Aberdeen,” said Lisa Weiss, president of Temple Beth Ahm

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Malik, who grew up attending an Orthodox shul in New York and a non-egalitarian Conservative synagogue in New Jersey, never thought becoming a Rabbi was a possibility for her.

Malik graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton School of Business, where she was inducted into Phi Betta Kappa. After graduation, shhe worked as a Marketing Associate and Assistant Brand Manager at Procter & Gamble and as an Account Executive at Foote, Cone & Belding advertising agency.

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She realized her spiritual calling while living in San Francisco and began to work in the Jewish community as the Education Director of Congregation Beth Sholom and later became a freelance education consultant and researcher.

To further her knowledge, Malik earned her Ph.D. in Jewish Education from Stanford University and her rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2004 where she was awarded the Crown Fellowship, the Rabbi Morris Silverman Prize in Liturgy, the Raymond Mark Wintrob Memorial Prize in Bible and History, the Dr. Michael Higger Prize in Talmudic Studies, and the Cyrus Adler Prize as the outstanding student in her graduating class of rabbinical school.

Rabbi Malik is married to Adi Wyner, Professor of Statistics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. The Malik-Wyners have three children.

Rabbi Malik's previous pulpit was in the Philadelphia suburbs.


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