Rabbi Myrna Matsa recounts her service in community chaplaincy in Louisiana and Mississippi as the Gulf Coast region recovered from Hurricane Katrina. Rabbi Theodore Lichtenfeld adds his own recollections of his service in New Orleans during that crisis.
Rabbi Myrna Matsa, BCC, D. Min., was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary and served as a congregational rabbi both as senior rabbi in a small southern congregation and as an assistant in a large mid-western synagogue. She has earned a Doctor of Ministry degree which brings together psychology and theology, and she is also a Board Certified Chaplain. She has worked in a variety of medical settings: hospice, psychiatric hospital, cancer hospital, and nursing homes. As the world remembers Hurricane Katrina on its twentieth anniversary, Rabbi Matsa comes on NeshamaCast to discuss her experience as Rabbinic Pastoral/Trauma Counselor for Hurricane Katrina Support in the New Orleans, Baton Rouge and the Biloxi/Gulfport Region. She worked closely with leaders of the various faith communities, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and also lay people within the Gulf area providing them with direct pastoral services during reconstruction, serving as a Jewish referral resource, and interfacing with various mental health associations. She was sent by the New York Board of Rabbis in partnership with The Jewish Federations of North America. Rabbi Matsa is now retired and resides in Los Angeles. She is a member of NAJC.
Articles featuring Myrna Matsa during her community chaplaincy in the Gulf Region:
Congregation Beth Israel Moves Into Synagogue, WLOX, May 29, 2009
Oil Gushes, Trust Evaporates, Lilith Magazine, Sept. 3, 2010
Rabbi Helps Other Clergy to Weather Their Storms, New Jersey Jewish News, Nov. 24, 2010
Rabbi Theodore M. Lichtenfeld is a hospice chaplain with the Visiting Nurse Association of New Jersey. He previously served as rabbi at Congregation Agudat Achim in Schenectady, NY, and at pulpits in New Orleans and New Jersey. Rabbi Lichtenfeld completed a residency in Clinical Pastoral Education at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center with New York Presbyterian Hospital during the coronavirus pandemic in New York City. He was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2001, and also holds ordination from the Academy for Jewish Religion. Rabbi Lichtenfeld, a Philadelphia native, lives in Rockland County, NY, with his wife and three children.
Articles about Rabbi Lichtenfeld's Hurricane Katrina experience:
Katrina-depleted Jewish Community Begins High Holy Days with Heavy Heart, Religion News Service, Sept. 23, 2006
Hurricane Katrina Oral History of Rabbi Ted Lichtenfeld in Jewish Women's Archive, August 21, 2007
Editor's Note: In order to enhance the listening experience, some of the host's questions to Rabbi Matsa were not asked in the live conversation and were added into the recording during the post-production process. ECB