Executive Assistant to the Senior Rabbi-Marcia Zimmerman
Steele Recruiting, LLC is an executive Administrative Assistant Retained Search firm located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, specializing in Executive Administrative Assistant, Chiefs of Staff, and Personal Assistant placements for C-Suite and Senior Leadership Executives across the United States.
With over 20 years in recruitment, we have a solid reputation for quality placements, professionalism, and maintaining confidentiality for every client and candidate.
We are partnering with our trusted nonprofit client Temple Israel, located in the beautiful Uptown community in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for an Executive Assistant to the Senior Rabbi, Marcia Zimmerman, who has been a pillar in the Minneapolis community for over 38 years.
Temple Israel is an urban congregation dedicated to serving a diverse community. Temple Israel was the first synagogue established in Minneapolis and is now one of the ten largest congregations in the United States. Temple Israel, the largest and oldest Reform Jewish congregation in Minneapolis, is at the heart of a vibrant, community-oriented environment.
You do not need to be of the Jewish faith to apply for this role.
The Role
The Executive Assistant for the Senior Rabbi of Temple Israel will be pivotal in providing high-level administrative right-hand support to the Senior Rabbi of a 6,000-member congregation.
The Executive Assistant is a consummate professional who possesses integrity, sound judgment, tact, discretion, attention to detail, and the ability to build and maintain relationships with colleagues, community leaders, donors, and other stakeholders.
Temple Israel, one of the largest and most dynamic Reform congregations in the country, is seeking a high-level Executive Assistant to support their Senior Rabbi, a well-known and deeply respected female nonprofit leader. This is more than an administrative role. It is an opportunity to serve as an extension of the Rabbi’s presence and voice, ensuring that she can effectively lead, support, and connect with over 6,000 members of the congregation.
What Makes This Opportunity Unique:
- You will serve as a trusted partner to a nationally recognized faith leader whose work uplifts, unites, and supports an entire community.
- Your organizational talent and emotional intelligence will directly impact individuals during life’s most meaningful moments, from weddings and baby namings to funerals and personal crises.
- You will join a workplace culture that is kind, inclusive, and mission-driven, where collaboration and compassion are woven into daily life.
- If you are intellectually curious and open to learning, this role offers a rich opportunity to deepen your understanding of Judaism, nonprofit leadership, and the powerful role of faith-based institutions in the modern world.
Key Responsibilities:
- Maximize the Rabbi’s time, anticipating her needs and managing a fast-paced calendar filled with services, life cycle events, community outreach, and leadership responsibilities.
- Serve as the Rabbi’s liaison to congregants, community leaders, and internal staff with the utmost confidentiality, discretion, and empathy.
- Coordinate communications, correspondence, and follow-up, ensuring no detail is overlooked and every request is met with care and responsiveness.
- Create clarity and calm in a high-touch, high-trust role where your presence will be both felt and valued.
This is a calling for someone who sees administrative excellence as a way to serve, who is detail-oriented, composed under pressure, and committed to making a difference.
You will work with a team that supports and serves each other and works together to make a difference in people’s lives. The team is kind, caring, trust-based, happy, and wants to be there! You will be part of a nonprofit institution that is a pillar in the community, often called upon during times of community healing and celebration.
Temple Israel is a welcoming community that embraces diversity and fosters mutual respect for all. Inspired by Jewish wisdom.
Essential Functions:
- Manage the Senior Rabbi’s busy calendar, balancing competing priorities to ensure her time is used strategically. The successful candidate must efficiently and quickly leverage time between meetings to manage follow-ups and prepare the Rabbi for her next meeting, pivoting as necessary for unexpected changes. The Senior Rabbi will also require some assistance managing her personal calendar.
- Email management leveraging your ability to own decisions on the elevation of responses
- Serve as a primary point of contact for the Senior Rabbi, triaging communication requests, both phone and in person, following up promptly to ensure a high level of customer service, directing requests as needed to other areas within the organization.
- Develop systems and processes to effectively manage competing demands on clergy time, collect essential data
- Use of CRM (Salesforce) to better support clergy work and organizational record-keeping.
- Create systems to effectively organize, anticipate, and accommodate the quickly changing demands while maintaining effective internal leadership and optimizing cross-departmental functions.
- Assist Senior Rabbi with management of special projects and next actions for key tasks.
Core Competencies:
- Outstanding written and oral communication skills.
- Must be equally comfortable on the phone as in person, interacting with internal and external constituencies, high-profile community leaders, members of the congregation, and the general public.
- Must be comfortable communicating professionally by phone, email, and in person, including confirming appointments by phone.
- Provide a warm and welcoming experience for congregants, visitors, and stakeholders when interacting in person, over the phone, or via email.
- Demonstrated expert ability to manage the complex, ever-changing calendar of a very busy executive, with high attention to detail, preparation, and time management to ensure maximum efficiency.
- Expert meeting and travel arrangement experience, including door-to-door itineraries, domestic flights, cars, and restaurants, focusing on details and accuracy of information to effortlessly maximize the executive's daily calendar.
- Exceptional judgment, discretion, problem-solving skills, and ability to handle sensitive information and make appropriate decisions.
- Intuitive ability to juggle competing priorities. Understands when to take initiative, be resourceful to find answers, and know when to seek guidance.
- Advanced proficiency with MS Office Suite, Phone apps, Basic proficiency with Salesforce or other CRM database desired
- Must be equally comfortable with complex project management and partnering with another administrative team.
- High attention to detail, accuracy, and proofreading skills.
- Comfortable working in and respectful of the synagogue environment, including its culture and values.
- Comfortable with basic data entry for accurate record keeping of sensitive confidential information.
- Anticipate and address potential issues before they arise.
- Meeting preparation, including research and hospitality
Qualifications
- 5+ years of progressive Executive Assistant experience supporting Senior-level Executives, Executive Directors, or similar
- Exceptional judgment, discretion, problem-solving skills, and ability to handle sensitive information.
- Strong analytical and organizational skills with high attention to detail and accuracy
- Outstanding written and oral communication skills. Must be equally comfortable on the phone as in person.
- Demonstrated ability to manage complex meetings and travel arrangements.
- Intuitive ability to juggle competing priorities. Understands when to take initiative and when to ask for guidance.
- Proven ability to work independently, proactively, and creatively while exercising sound judgment and discretion on confidential matters
- Must be equally comfortable with complex project management, data entry, to tasks such as arranging snacks and coffee for meetings
- Ability to work under pressure to handle a wide variety of activities with shifting priorities, making wise decisions
- Advanced proficiency with MS Office Suite and Google Workspace.
- Basic proficiency with Salesforce or other CRM databases strongly desired, or willingness to learn quickly with hands-on training.
- An appreciation of the Jewish faith.
You do not need to be of the Jewish faith to apply for this role.The team is a combination of Jewish and non-Jewish team members, reflecting an inclusive and welcoming organizational culture.
Benefits
- Medical Insurance
- Dental Insurance
- Health Savings Account (HSA)
- Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
- Life and AD&D Insurance (Employer-provided)
- Voluntary Life and AD&D Insurance
- 403(b) Retirement Plan, with a 4% match
- Very Generous vacation and sick time
- 3 personal days
- 16 paid holidays
- This is an in-office position, with some flexibility as needed, typical office hours M-F with the flexibility to attend occasional meetings and events as needed after-hours
- 75% tuition reduction at Temple Israel's onsite early childhood preschool and external camp programs
Temple Israel is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, creed, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, citizenship status, veteran status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by law.
