Bio & Contact Rabbi Chava
Chava Bahle (formerly Stacie Schiff Fine) was the founding rabbi of Congregation Ahavat Shalom in Traverse City, which she and a group of families created to meet the needs of Jewish and inter-cultural families in northwest lower Michigan. She retired from the Ahavat Shalom pulpit in June, 2007 to pursue interfaith work nationally.
She is known across the region as visionary leader to people of all cultural backgrounds.
Chava is a twice ordained rabbi and Maggid, a Jewish inspirational preacher and storyteller.
She received her first smicha (rabbinic ordination) in 1998 from a beth din (rabbinical court) of ordained rabbis from 3 denominations in New York.
Rabbi Chava received rabbinic smicha from the ALEPH Alliance for Jewish Renewal Smicha Program in July, 2005. click here to visit ALEPH's Rabbinic Program site
She is also an ordained Maggid, a Jewish inspirational preacher and story teller in the lineage of Maggid Yitzhak Buxbaum, Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi and Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. To read the text of her ordination certificate, click here to read the smicha document
Her current work is to live into the teaching of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, her teacher, of blessed memory, who taught that we can and should find nourishment in traditions other than our own. She earned her Doctor of Ministry from Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, where she focused on mystical aspects of interreligious dialogue. Chava writes book reviews for academic journals, and since a brain injury in 2018, focuses her life on study and prayer. She is currently pursuing study for an ethical biography of German expressionist actor Conrad Veidt.
She lives in Suttons Bay and is married to Karl Bahle. Together they serve as staff to a fine and holy cat named Minnie Purrl.
Why Rabbi Chava loves living Up North
Rabbi Chava Bahle
P O Box 441
Suttons Bay MI 49682
(231)357-7152
email: rabbichava@gmail.com
click here to email me
