Clergy

Rabbi Mari Chernow – Senior Rabbi

Rabbi Chernow has already had an impressive career and an inspiring record of Jewish leadership and study. She is a Los Angeles native with deep roots in the community. After her ordination at the Los Angeles campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in 2003, she joined the Clergy team at Temple Chai in Phoenix, Arizona. In 2009, she was installed as the Senior Rabbi to oversee all aspects of congregational life and fulfill the full range of senior rabbi responsibilities, including prayer, youth and adult education, pastoral care, life cycle events, fundraising, administration, staff supervision, and leadership development.

Rabbi Chernow actively participates and has served in prominent leadership roles in the larger Phoenix Jewish community and nationally. She has served on the Board of Overseers of HUC-JIR (LA Campus), the Board of Directors of Pardes Jewish Day School, the Reform Movement Think Tank, and various committees and positions for the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR). She is a graduate of the Shalom Hartman Institute three-year Rabbinic Leadership Initiative, where she continues to participate in their Rabbinic Torah Study Seminar. Rabbi Chernow’s rabbinic passions include the Jewish healing movement, the study of Biblical literature, and the power of vibrant worship.

Rabbi Chernow is happy to “come home” to Los Angeles to serve as the senior rabbi of Temple Israel of Hollywood. She and her wife, Kara, are blessed to raise their three children: Melila, Ezra, and Lillian. Contact Rabbi Mari Chernow. To read some of Rabbi Mari’s writings and sermons, click here.

Rabbi Michelle Missaghieh – Associate Rabbi

Rabbi Michelle Missaghieh has served as Temple Israel’s Associate Rabbi since her ordination from HUC-JIR in 1996. Rabbi Missaghieh also holds a BA in Art History and Women’s Studies from the University of Michigan (1989) and a Master’s Degree in Jewish Education from HUC-JIR, LA (1994). She enjoys teaching people of all ages and empowering them to participate in Jewish living.

Her favorite aspects of the rabbinate are learning, teaching, and pastoral work. She teaches many classes on-line and in person (find them on our calendar). She takes special interest in working with individuals for conversion, creating meaningful Jewish wedding ceremonies and life cycle events, running TIOH’s yearly Women’s Retreat, developing environments where TIOH members gather for intergenerational neighborhood Shabbat dinners, teaching a monthly Daf-Yomi class on the Talmud, and other opportunities where members connect to discuss issues of aging, parenting, or contemporary issues through a Jewish lens.

She has introduced many innovative programs to TIOH like Sukkot in the City, Neighborhood Shabbat, Tashlich on the beach, the standing-room-only participatory High Holiday minyan services, and she has trained over 30 men and women to be on TIOH’s Chevrah Kadisha (a group who prepares deceased bodies for burial).

In the greater community, Rabbi Missaghieh serves on the board of LA Family Housing and the Executive Board and the Em Sagan of the Sandra Caplan Community Bet Din (the only pluralistic Bet Din in the United States).

She is also on the Rabbinic Advisory Board of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, an advisor to MAJIC of NewGround: A Muslim Jewish Partnership for Change and an ARZA Rabbinic Counsel member. She and her husband, Bruce Ellman, a psychologist in private practice, have three children Jael, Sivan, and Ezri. Contact Rabbi Michelle Missaghieh.

Shelly Fox – Cantorial Soloist

Shelly Fox has served Temple Israel of Hollywood as Cantorial Soloist since 2015 and as Music Director since 2017. Shelly is deeply interested in exploring the balance between tradition and innovation in worship music and encouraging people to discover and develop their own voice in prayer and song.

Before entering the Cantorate, Shelly worked extensively as a professional classical soprano, specializing in Renaissance and Baroque music as both a soloist and vocal chamber musician, having received her Master’s Degree in Voice Performance from Indiana University in 1999. Shelly was a member of the Los Angeles Master Chorale for 18 years and for 9 years was the voice faculty for the Early Music Department at University of Southern California. Before focusing on Classical Music, Shelly was a folk singer-songwriter in Upstate New York and Nashville, Tennessee. She enjoys bouncing between styles and in any worship service one can hear her lead the congregation in song with her guitar and also fill the room with old synagogue classics.

At TIOH, Shelly is committed to high musical standards in worship services and in the schools. She works with all B’nei Mitzvah students on the musical aspect of their service and joins the Nursery School and Elementary School song leaders for their weekday services. A firm believer in a congregation that sings, Shelly started the TIOH Community Singing Jam, a monthly informal musical gathering that combines text study, tune learning and the joy of singing in community to encourage congregants to bring that joy and knowledge to our music-filled worship services.

Shelly is currently studying for her Cantorial Ordination at Academy of Jewish Religion California. When she’s not at work or in school, she enjoys spending time with her husband Allan Fox, their son Simon, and her stepson Gabe. Contact Cantorial Soloist Shelly Fox.

Rabbi John Rosove – Sr. Rabbi Emeritus

Rabbi John L. Rosove is Senior Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Israel of Hollywood in Los Angeles and served as the Senior Rabbi from 1988 to 2019. He is a past National Chair of the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA) and a past national co-Chair of the Rabbinic and Cantorial Cabinet of J Street. He serves as a member of the International Advisory Council of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism (IMPJ).  

John is the author of three books: 

From the West to the East – A Memoir of a Liberal American Rabbi (Fresno: West of the West Publishers, 2023), available at Amazon or directly from the publisher. 

Why Judaism Matters – Letters of a Liberal Rabbi to his Children and the Millennial Generation with an Afterword by Daniel and David Rosove (Nashville: Jewish Lights Publishing, a division of Turner Publishing Company, 2017), available at Amazon. 

Why Israel [and its Future] Matters – Letters of a Liberal Rabbi to the Next Generation with an Afterword by Daniel and David Rosove (New Jersey: Ben Yehuda Press, 2019 1^st edition – 2^nd edition with an Introduction after October 7, 2023), available at Amazon. 

John is the co-editor of Deepening the Dialogue – Jewish-Americans and Israelis Envisioning the Jewish-Democratic State (New York: CCAR Press, 2020 – in Hebrew and English). 

John translated and edited the Hebrew biography of his Great Granduncle entitled Avraham Shapira – Veteran of the Haganah and Hebrew Guard by Getzel Kressel (publ. by the Municipality of Petach Tikvah, 1955) and he translated and edited the poetry and writings of his cousin Michael Shapira In the Prime of His Days with an Introduction by Professor Yosef Yoel Rivlin (Jerusalem, 1953). The two translations were privately published. 

John writes a regular blog at The Times of Israel and has a personal blog at rabbijohnrosove.blog. You also find him on Facebook and LinkedIn.

John is married to Barbara. They are the parents of two sons – Daniel and David. Daniel is married to Marina Javor. John and Barbara have two grandchildren. 

Aviva Rosenbloom – Cantor Emerita

Cantor Aviva Rosenbloom served as Cantor at Temple Israel of Hollywood from 1975 through 2008, making her one of the pioneering female cantors in the Los Angeles area. While at TIOH, Cantor Rosenbloom prepared over 1,000 young people for their Bat and Bar Mitzvah ceremonies, taught music in the Religious School and Day School, and put together epic Purim shpiels by writing parodies of classic musicals and rock songs. She lives in Altadena with her husband Ben and still sings and chants for several synagogues, in Pasadena and Berkeley, CA.

Daughter of a Cantor and a Hebrew teacher, Aviva learned Jewish songs from a young age, and started leading and teaching songs when she was in high school, in Jewish youth groups and summer camps. She has a Master’s degree in Voice from Cal State Fullerton and completed a three-year program in Cantorial studies with Cantor William Sharlin z”l.

Aviva is also a songwriter, with several CDs of her Jewish music and a career retrospective CD, “Viva Aviva: A Life in Song,” all produced when she was Cantor at Temple Israel.