Rhoda J.H. Silverman, Ph.D. has served the Baltimore Reform community since her 1993 graduation from the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion School of Sacred Music. She has served Temple Emanuel of Baltimore since 2000 as Cantor and since 2008 as Rabbi/Cantor of the congregation. Before assuming the pulpit at Temple Emanuel, she served as Cantor of Baltimore’s Har Sinai Congregation.
Dr. Silverman received her Ph.D. in Jewish Studies from the Baltimore Hebrew Institute at Towson University (formally Baltimore Hebrew University) in 2012. Her dissertation investigated the accommodation of liturgy to modernity. Her doctoral work enabled her to earn Rabbinic Semicha from the Transdenominational Rabbinical Academy in 2008. In 1993, she received her Masters in Sacred Music and Cantorial Investiture from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC) after studying at both the New York and Jerusalem campuses. In addition to the various leadership roles she assumed while a student at HUC, Dr. Silverman was the first cantorial student to participate in the interdenominational Clinical Pastoral Education Chaplaincy training program during which time she served as a chaplain-intern at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
Dr. Silverman works to merge her musical and liturgical interests through the composition of music and poetry for the synagogue.
In addition to her studies and congregational work, Dr. Silverman has served on the adjunct faculty of the Baltimore Hebrew University and Loyola University. She currently serves on the founding board of BARJ-CO, an educational cooperation of the four Reform congregations in Baltimore, and participates actively in interfaith study and dialogue.
Once upon a time, Dr. Silverman graduated Summa Cum Laude with a degree in Psychology and worked as a research-consultant designing protocol for The Educational Testing Service in Princeton, NJ and The Colgate-Palmolive Company in New Brunswick, NJ. She is an avid runner, triathlete, and self-described ‘gym-rat’ who stays in shape in order to keep up with her two teenage daughters.