Emma Fischer. (Courtesy of Emma Fischer)
As an undergraduate, a peer once asked Emma Fischer if Jewish men wore the “little hats” to hide their horns. Rather than get angry or react in horror, she calmly explained that the question was rooted in an old antisemitic trope and wasn’t at all true.
Word got around campus that Fischer was a “safe person” for questions about Judaism, something students at the small liberal arts college in Atlanta didn’t know much about at the time. For some, Fischer was the first Jewish person they’d ever met.
“There was many a day in the dining hall where people would have questions for me, and often, my answers would begin with, ‘Listen, I’m not a rabbi, but here’s what I can tell you,’” she recalled.
That got her thinking: “Hold on, I really like this.”
“I really love and value the trust and faith that people put in me, and the relationship that I’m able to build with them,” Fischer said. “And I love Judaism. What if I was a rabbi?”
She found a nearby Reconstructionist synagogue, fell into the academic study of religion and worked there for a year, ultimately graduating with a degree in religion and social justice.
The West Philadelphia resident is now a fifth-year rabbinical student at Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote. She intends to graduate in 2027 with a master’s degree in Hebrew letters and with rabbinic ordination.
Fischer is also in her second year as the rabbinic intern at Hillel at Drexel University. The Hillel is currently celebrating the 10th anniversary of its building of its building, so “this is a really special time to be part of Drexel Hillel,” according to Fischer.
She described her role as “a little bit of everything,” including leading services and Torah study, teaching classes, having one-on-one coffee chats with students, offering pastoral support and participating in Hillel activities, all while being a rabbinical student.
“Sometimes our finals schedules line up and I study for my finals while they study for their finals,” Fischer said. “Sometimes a student has a terrible breakup, and I’m a sympathetic shoulder to lean on.”
Her work aligns with the season. Leading up to October, Fischer taught a miniseries of Jewish learning about monsters, angels and demons, diving into Jewish folklore and exploring the lesser-known, “spooky” side of Jewish tradition.
“I cook with students, I bake with students, I study Torah with students,” she said. “I’m there for the ups and downs of their undergraduate life, where the job offers and [Cooperative Education] acceptances and the breakups and the study sessions. I get to accompany them throughout their college experience, and it’s really fun and special.”
She most recently completed a unit of clinical pastoral education at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Before that, Fischer taught religious school at Germantown Jewish Centre and served as rabbinic intern at Congregation B’nai Abraham in Bordentown, New Jersey, and the Kaiserman JCC in Wynnewood.
Prior to rabbinical school, she worked as a preschool teacher at her childhood synagogue, then moved to New Orleans to participate in Avodah’s Jewish Service Corps for a year, helping provide services to individuals returning home from incarceration. The age difference between preschoolers and Hillel students is sizable, but Fischer has discovered they’re not too fundamentally different.
“The things that I really loved about preschool and religious school that I now love about working with undergraduates [are] the joy and the brightness and the inquisitiveness,” she said. “The questions that my undergraduates ask me are significantly harder than the questions my preschoolers and religious school students ever asked me. But the underlying curiosity and enthusiasm is absolutely still there.”
Though she spent the first 24 years of her life living in the South — she was one of a small handful of Jewish kids growing up in Nashville — Fischer considers herself a “Philly girl.” Her family emigrated to the U.S. and settled in Philadelphia for three generations.
Thanksgivings marked annual trips to Philly for Fischer.
“I have long loved the city and the culture and the food, so coming back to Philadelphia for school felt really special as a sort of homecoming,” she said. “I feel really proud to call Philadelphia my home for the last five years.”
Just under 200 days from ordination, Fischer is on the hunt for a full-time rabbinic position. She hopes to continue working in a campus context.
“I also would love anything related to education, anything related to opportunities for Jewish joy,” Fischer said.
The rabbinic student is open to returning to pediatric chaplaincy as well, if that’s where her path leads.
“I think people have this image of chaplaincy as very serious, and it often is, and [it’s also] the giggles that you get from patients and with patients and families,” Fischer said. “I am interested in pursuing Jewish joy, and I will see where that takes me.”
zbell@midatlanticmedia.com