20 | JULY 1 • 2021 

BY JERRY ZOLYNSKY

A

fter serving several 
rabbinical intern posts 
in New York and 
Connecticut, trying her hand as 
one of the country’s few 
schochetet (a female ritual 
slaughterer) and teaching class-
es that wove common threads 
between the transformative 
nature of studying Torah and 
pickling food, Rabbi Blair 
Nosanwisch returns to her 
Detroit roots. 
 This April, she joined the cler-
gy at Adat Shalom Synagogue 
in Farmington Hills as its first 
director of spiritual care. 
As she prepared to take on her 
new role, Nosanwisch recalled 
a moment of “serendipity” that 
compelled her to take on this 
type of rabbinical work. 
About three years ago, 
she and her husband 
and life partner, Phreddy 
Nosanwisch, found them-
selves needing spiritual 
care and nurturing as they 
waited in the hallways at 
the University of Michigan 
Hospital. Their two-month 
infant son Honi had just 
been brought to the hospital 
and needed emergency heart 
surgery.
Then, in the fall of 2020, 
six months into the pandem-
ic, Rabbi Nosanwisch found 
herself back in the halls of that 
same hospital, and this time it 
was she who was doing the nur-
turing and caring in her pasto-
ral internship as a chaplain. It 
was her job to provide spiritual 
care to patients and their fam-
ilies in their most challenging 
moments in the height of the 
pandemic. 
“
At that moment [when our 
son needed surgery], Phreddy 
and I felt like our eyes were 
opened,
” said Nosanwisch, 
who this spring completed her 

rabbinical training for pastoral 
care at the Jewish Theological 
Seminary in New York City 
“We were so cared for in a ter-
rifying and traumatic moment 
in our lives. The hospital had 
done so much for me and my 
family. At that moment, in 
the hospital, it dawned on me. 
Stripped down from all the 
spiritual and intellectual compo-
nents, being a rabbi is all about 
helping people.
”
Rabbi Aaron Bergman said 
Nosanwisch’s skills and training 
in pastoral care and her empa-
thetic and approachable per-
sonality make her a welcoming 
addition to the Adat Shalom 
clergy. He said at this time, 
Nosanwisch’s personal touch will 

be most welcome. 
“
As we reemerge from the 
pandemic, we are moving into 
a good place,
” said Bergman. 
“There will be those who are 
eager to come back into the 
building and those who will 
want to remain on Zoom for 
health or mobility reasons. We 
feel like Rabbi Nosanswisch has 
the smart sensibility that will 
help us all as we go into this 
great unknown.
”
Nosanwisch finished her 
rabbinical degree remotely 
from her parents’ home in 
Franklin while Phreddy took 
a position teaching Judaics 
at Hillel Day School. Honi is 
now 3 and their daughter Erev 
Willow is almost 2. 

 “
As young parents, we are still 
going through our own process 
in understanding who we are 
and what traditions and values 
we want to pass down to our 
own children,
” Nosanwisch said. 
“Young people have their own 
culture on how they approach 
gender and sexuality, and it 
would be beneficial if parents 
could support them and give 
them the space to articulate that. 
It is a process.
“This is the same outlook I 
have about the study of Torah. 
Torah to me is a process and not 
a stagnant text,
” she said. “How 
do we consider all views and 
give them equal importance? 
How can we sit with different 
views emotionally, spiritually 
and intellectually? How 
healing is it to young people 
to know that the way they 
see society matters? That is 
what I think about when it 
comes to the way I want to 
care for young people.
”
During the pandemic, 
Nosanwisch said she yearned 
for physically being with 
people in shared spaces, 
whether in synagogue or in a 
favorite restaurant. Above all, she 
misses singing in the same room 
with others, especially the liturgy 
of Shabbat services. 
“
A lot of my job at the begin-
ning will have to do with listen-
ing,
” said Nosanwisch. “During 
the pandemic, we have all been 
grappling with so much. Our 
lives became small as work, fam-
ily and home became all blended 
together. 
“Now, I am excited to learn 
about the pulse of my new con-
gregation and am eager to see 
how we can have new experi-
ences, either in person or online, 
that will make us deeply rooted 
and feel nurtured as we move 
forward past the pandemic.
” 

OUR COMMUNITY

Homecoming

Rabbi Blair Nosanwisch 
returns to her Detroit roots.

STACY GITTLEMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Rabbi Blair 
Nosanwisch

