Suzanne Offit
Rabbi Suzanne Offit is the Palliative Care Chaplain in post-acute services at Hebrew SeniorLife in Boston, where she specializes in geriatrics and end-of-life work. She was one of the founding students at the Hebrew College Rabbinical School, where she was ordained. Rabbi Offit is on the founding board of Zaggo Care, has served as the Chair of the Hadassah foundation, and is the Chair of the Pluralism Committee. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and has three sons.
Suzanne speaks about her work and her background as a female rabbi who began her rabbinical studies around the age of forty. She talks about the background of her Jewish identity and the factors that led her toward her profession, such as taking classes at Hebrew College while she was a new mother. She discusses her faith and how she makes space for the sacred in her life. She works with seniors, providing end-of-life care, and dealing with the emotional toll of that work, emphasizing the importance of connecting with patients and grounding herself with spiritual practices such as meditation. She recounts the story of spending time with the mother of Michael Bloomberg, Charlotte Bloomberg, at the end of her life. The Bloomberg family then gave a grant to Hebrew College to support the education of Chaplaincy students. Finally, she discusses how her marriage transformed as she underwent rabbinical education, as her husband also pursued a career change to more humanistic fields.
