Rabbi Joe Menashe began serving as an Associate Rabbi in the summer of 2006. He hails from Portland, Oregon, where he grew up attending Congregation Neveh Shalom. Rabbi Menashe received a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1993, attended the Pardes Instititute for Jewish Studies from 1993-1994, and subsequently started his rabbinic studies. Rabbi Menashe obtained a Master of Hebrew Letters degree from the University of Judaism in Los Angeles in 1996 and received his Rabbinic Ordination and a Master of Arts degree (with a concentration in Jewish Education) in 2000 from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. During rabbinical school, Rabbi Menashe taught in a variety of youth and teen settings and spent most of his summers working at Camp Ramah in California.

From 2000 - 2006, Rabbi Menashe served as the Hillel Director at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. During his tenure, Hopkins Hillel opened a home for Jewish life, The Smokler Center for Jewish Life, Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Building. He was awarded Hillel’s Richard M. Joel, Exemplar of Excellence Award in 2004.

During one of those “Ramah Summers,” Rabbi Menashe (then just Joe) met Deborah Musher. Deborah and Joe were married in her hometown of Houston in 2002. Deborah is a special educator and focuses her work and research on students with autism. Together, Rabbi Menashe and Deborah have two beautiful children, a daughter Molly and a son Gabriel.