The Hot Rabbi

by Douglas Mercer

SHE’S THE “hot rabbi” (so Rebecca Eisenstadt says of herself) and if she’s a shameless tart and shows a bit of skin, no worries — she’s “Orthodox in her soul” and if she “colors outside the lines” she’s doing it all for Yahweh. Soon she’ll have her own television show which will trail her along the tony precincts of Jewish New York City where she counsels Hebrew tweens in the deep mysteries of Jewish Supremacism. The “Woman Rabbi,” though, has been unlucky in love — as she’s a whole lot of lady and as modern as tomorrow afternoon, but still she’s Orthodox and it’s hard to find a man who can accept her “I am a Jewish woman, hear me roar” ethos yet at the same time be conversant with the niceties of the shul.

What’s a female rabbi to do? Except rake in the dough as the boutique rabbi to the rich and Jewish. She’s the “glam” rabbi that everyone who’s anyone is talking about and loves to love — and to the kids she’s the real rockin’ rabbi who can explicate Deuteronomy in a trice, but at the same time gets down to the latest rap song (and she may even know the rapper), and knows which pricey handbag goes with what. It’s a real Jew coup to have her on your calendar, as the wait lists are long and getting longer — her time is valuable, but if you can break in to the inner precincts of her Chosen few, you wont’ regret it — your daughter not only will knock those bat mitzvah questions out of the park, she’ll do it with some real style and her face all tarted up.

If a more disgusting creature walks the surface of the Earth, I for one have never seen it.

She’s an actress with so little talent that she decided to glom on to another unprecedented gig: hot rabbi. It really was a kind of perverse genius, realizing that New York City is full of “cool Jews” who love the Jew part (is there anything more cool?) but who disdain the fusty and musty “synagogue” — that’s old school for the old farts who wear their pants six inches above their waists and walk in white tennis shoes so slowly that if they walked any slower they’d be going backwards. So, as cool Jews, they’ve found their hot rabbi. She will cater to their pretentiousness, give the kids that bat mitzvah, and seamlessly enable their upper-class Jewish lifestyle. She’s an entrepreneur of Jewishness, of upper-class “high society” Jewishness, and from the looks of it business is booming.

As an actress, she starred in the National Yiddish Theatre’s Off-Broadway show, The Megile of Itzik Manger. Rebecca also starred in the LaMaMa E.T.C, Metropolitan Room and Axelrod Performing Arts Center productions of Rachel and Leah. Rebecca appeared in Swados’s award winning tribute for the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire memorial, From the Fire. She has acted in various productions with The National Yiddish Theater/Folksbiene since 2009.

That’s a lot of Yids.

You can see that with that small-time résumé, she’s turned her sights to higher (and more lucrative) things. And in New York City she hit the bonanza and the mother lode all wrapped up in one, as there is certainly no dearth of gulls whom she could flatter in Zoo City. She is everything a modern Jew could want: Why, she’ll hair-split the Talmud with the wizened elders while her hair is coiffed to the nines. There’s more than bit of décolletage and the midriff is bare, but if you ask her about Exodus prepare to have her talk your ears off.

She says her brand of Judaism is “hipsterdox,” that is, Orthodox with a cool twist. She hasn’t forgotten the basics, but that’s no reason not to vamp it up and sashay around like a streetwalker. No contradiction there — this isn’t your father’s musty and fusty Synagogue, this is New Day Jewdom. Those rich-richer-richest types on the West Side aren’t like the greasy men in black coats and black hats who staggered onto the docks in the same city 120 years ago. No, they’ve cleaned up nice (they think! — gag!) and have moved on past the ordeal of civility. They are onto all the new hot trends — but still have the same black dream of White genocide in their hearts.

And Rebecca Eisenstadt will cater to them, flatter them, puff up their egos, and inculcate their children in the old lore of Jewish hate for White people — while still giving them a view of all the latest fashions at the same time. And (don’t you worry) she’ll cash those checks faster than Yellow Kid Weil (to whom she just might be related).

Rebecca Keren Eisenstadt is a Rabbi and private educator. She obtained semicha from Mesifta Adas Wolkowisk in New York. She graduated with Honors from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and Leonard N. Stern School of Business. Rebecca also graduated from the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, MD. Rebecca has been working as an on-demand Rabbi, B’nai Mitzvah, Hebrew and Judaic Studies tutor for more than 15 years, combining her loves of Judaism, music, and performance. She works with various synagogues in Manhattan and is affiliated with several Rabbis in the US and Israel. She also officiates weddings, funerals, baby namings, bespoke holiday gatherings and other Jewish life cycle events.

Arts performer, Stern Business School graduate — performance art meets the bottom line in this brash young barracuda, she knows there are squads of cash sloshing around those rarefied neighborhoods and she’ll just pop in from time to time and show the young Jew girl how to apply that makeup while cribbing her on Esther, and cart off some of that excess money. “Bespoke holidays” are for that “rarefied” (read: stinking with wealth but also actually stinking) atmosphere in which she whirls — and semicha, in case you are not overly familiar with the ins and outs of the rancid Jewish religion, refers to the ordination of a rabbi. This ridiculous process supposedly transmits the line of authority all the way from Moses to this whore in a silk prayer shawl. To obtain the title of “rabbi,” one must be steeped in Torah, Talmud, and White genocide.

The Hot Rabbi is up on all of it.

You’re an uber-rich Jew who’s got a tween? Be sure to get in early and book the cool rabbi, and she’ll initiate your son into becoming subject to the law; his friends will envy him when they see that hot rabbi — even the Yeshiva boys will lose their cool and won’t be able to contain themselves. They’ll lust after her like the Jews of old lusted after a young White boys’ blood to drink.

Rabbi Rebecca Keren Eisenstadt lives in a one-bedroom apartment on Second Avenue on the Upper East Side, but she feels just as at home in the penthouses just a few blocks away on Park Avenue.

Her press sounds like it should be titled Lifestyles of the Rich and Jewish. Were Robin Leach still among the living, he’d slobber all over this “sexy” leech and breathlessly chronicle her escapades among the kikes of Gotham City.

If anything written has ever oozed more finger-in-the-mouth pretentiousness, I for one have never read it:

Most afternoons, Eisenstadt and her shih-poo, Scout, can be found shuttling between the Upper East Side homes of her 40 tween students — or “Jewdents,” as she calls them — as they prepare for their bar or bat mitzvahs. On the weekends, you might spot her on social media, and she frequently posts selfies from her client’s lavish parties. And soon, she hopes, you’ll find her on TV, thanks to Reese Witherspoon’s media company, which is making a documentary series about her life as a single rabbi looking for love.

This literally sounds like Cholly Bilderberger wrote it.

This is the television show that will write itself: Just a rabbi looking for love! You want this hot rabbi? You had better be kosher. But don’t stint on the modern knowledge, you should know all the names of all the glamorous people, all the “hot trends,” and all the best places to “nosh” in New York City. The show will play up her entrepreneurial skills and show her sighing over the lack of love in her life. And then one day Mr. Jew will show up — he will be dashing and charming and wear the tiny hat, but won’t seem out of place on her arm as she air kisses with Snoop Dog at the gala event.

As rewarding as she finds her work, without an administrator, cantor or any other colleague to fall back on, the freelance life can be exhausting and lonely.

The show will play up this angle. A tiring day of racking in tens of thousands while hobnobbing with the Jewish elite, what could be more taxing? It’s on to this high rise, and then that one, and then this fashionable restaurant, and then to the new one, then she takes the young Jews on a tour of the city’s “hot spots” and squeezes in a little Yid lore that would warm a bubbeleh’s heart. But where’s the man to share that schmear with? A lissome and lithe Jewish lady gets lonely late at night studying the lacunae of Leviticus and she needs a man’s hand to soothe her.

That struggle will be a focus of the series being made about her life. The production company has filmed a pilot and is currently trying to find a network to host the show, which will chronicle Eisenstadt looking for love and succeeding as a young, single woman in a man’s world, as she puts it. As she guides tweens and their families on spiritual journeys, she also goes on dates, gets her hair blown out and glams up for her clients’ events.

She’s a Jew who’s looking for love. Tune in at 8:00PM sharp to see her on the prowl.

Eisenstadt’s own relationship with Judaism has added some complication in her life. She said she has found it nearly impossible to find people to date who are as religiously observant — Eisenstadt keeps kosher and identifies as “hipsterdox,” a loose Modern Orthodox — and dedicated to Judaism as she is, while also being comfortable with her career as a non-denominational rabbi.

Yes, she’s Modern Orthodox but she’s not going to date one of those guys with the oversized hockey pucks for hats, the ones with the greasy curls who dance like lunatics dressed all in black. Hell no, she isn’t! You’ve got to be kidding; her super-expensive wardrobe is mauve and magenta and all the colors of the multicolored rainbow. One of those upstate Orthodox Jews living ten to a single family home, the ones who voted for Trump in insane numbers, they’d think that she’s a whore. She is a whore, but she uses different words — and it’s safe to say that she’s good with that, nothing wrong with flaunting what you’ve got as long as you are doing it all for the Lord of Hosts.

So what’s a Jewish whore rabbi to do? It’s a real conundrum, and the show will milk this simple premise for all it’s worth — all the way to the Jewish-owned bank.

One place Eisenstadt can’t usually be found is at a synagogue. And that’s by design. Eisenstadt — known as Rabbi Becky to most — is building a brand for herself based on the fact that many Jews feel disconnected from, or left behind by, the traditional centerpiece of American Judaism.

These are modern Jews, rainbow Jews. These aren’t those old hoary Jews that smell of fish oil or even the uber-modern generic Jews in their suits and ties. Not on your life. She’s building a brand, a brand as the hip and swinging Jewess who embraces the modern world in all of its degeneracy and filth — but keeps her eyes on the “holy land” all the same. Why, it allows that young Jew drooling over the prospect of the excitement of the city to maintain his Jewish standing in good form and still stay up in to the wee hours partying like it’s 5799.

What a sweet deal!

Instead of a pulpit, Eisenstadt is a private rabbi-for-hire for dozens of New York City families, mostly on the affluent Upper East Side. Her clients are the types of people who are used to having things done their way, on their own time — and that’s true even when it comes to Jewish learning and lifecycle events Especially with successful New Yorkers, they feel like they own the city, Eisenstadt said. They don’t want to feel like they’re a number on a waitlist.

Oh they own the city, do they? Well, they don’t call it Jew York City and Hymie Town for nothing, darling. They own the city and they want things their way. And this little yenta has found a way to worm her way into becoming the Rabbi to the Jewish Stars. Just as a former elite thought it the height of fashion to jet to India to sit at the foot of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, today’s plug-ugly “elite” can stay at home and get their spiritual guidance from a girl who looks like she could be a hairdresser in the Valley but who dispenses Jewish “wisdom” on the fly for bucketsful of money.

If synagogues are mass transit, Eisenstadt is Uber: Her services are bespoke, personalized and on-demand. She customizes her clients’ prayer books, tailors their bar or bat mitzvah services and plans families’ trips to Israel. She’s overseen a spiritual ceremonies at the Western Wall in Jerusalem — and also an over-the-top party at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center where rapper Pitbull performed.

A trip to the Wall to wear that little hat and say the shaloms and boogie all night to the sounds of Pitbull! She’s half Moses and half maven; she’s a modern Jew’s dream girl. The guys with the grey beards with Matzoh soup dripping from them, and the businessmen who runs the synagogue, may look askance at it all, but the aspiring hip Hebrews love it! This is the future of Jewdom! Do your own thing, be solemn at the Wall, but cut loose down in Tel Aviv where you can take in a drag show. It’s all Kosher, so don’ worry even a liddle bit.

Becky is basically a legend, said Erica Copulsky, who hired Eisenstadt to help both her children prepare for Jewish coming-of-age ceremonies. They first met in 2018, when the Copulskys hired Eisenstadt to supplement the instruction their son got at Temple Emanu-El before his bar mitzvah. Copulsky felt like Eisenstadt, the external tutor, was the only person who really guided and got to know her son during the process.

Ah, teaching little Schmulie Copulsky the in and outs of Jewish lore. The shul, Jewish law, Torah and Talmud, beth din, halakah, aliyah. And then she can counsel him on girl trouble, hand him some condoms and send the little Hebrew lad on his way. Boy, the tales he can tell of her visit to the Jewish Day School will really bend their ears.

When it came time for her daughter to become a bat mitzvah last year, the family no longer belonged to a synagogue — like so many other New Yorkers, they had relocated to Florida. So Copulsky turned to Eisenstadt, who tutored her daughter via Zoom and flew down to lead the ceremony. Everyone said to me, Can’t you find someone locally? Copulsky said. But Becky was our synagogue. Becky was the reason why my daughter wanted a bat mitzvah and she was her connection to New York, her connection to her community and her connection to Judaism.

The hot rabbi is a real jet-setter — if you consider the route from New York City to Florida to be jet-setting. (I hear the route is so well-traveled that the poorer Jews sometimes just walk on the solidified jet trails,) She leaves the haven of sin and flys to the land of mah-jongg and rest homes, and curries favor with the Moneyed Tribe in retirement — and tells little Sarah all about how that great lady Esther dressed up like a chap slattern and did the Jews the biggest solid of all. There’s no reason she, too, can’t be the sexy Jew and still bag a Wall Street billionaire.

Synagogues, in some cases, have become stale, Eisenstadt said about the demand for her services. Just because you get some glass windows and do a modern renovation, if you’re not totally renovating and keeping up and have your finger on the pulse of what’s going on with your constituents, then you’re going to lose touch.

She’s better than a synagogue — she’s a roving synagogue in herself, and it’s not in muted black and browns but in vibrant pastels. It won’t be quiet murmuring in the shul; she’ll put on some “hip hop” in the background and teach them everything that Eliezer ben Yehuda ever knew.

She’s tutored bar mitzvah students for more than half her life, starting as a teenager in Maryland and continuing through her college years at New York University and as side gigs as she worked in theater, education and at SoulCycle. Now 36 and recently ordained as a rabbi by Mesifta Adas Wolkowsik, a nondenominational for working Jewish professionals, Eisenstadt says she understands what many New York City families want as their children prepare to mark a major Jewish milestone.

The High Holidays, cantorial investiture, Judaic academic disciplines, sabbatons, Jewish religious retreats — she’s mistress of them all.

All together, she’s had more than 700 clients to date. And though she notes that the demand for her services gives her the ability to charge rates comparable to a young lawyer, Eisenstadt says her tutoring is far more than a business transaction.

She’s a yuppie’s yuppie cruising the backwaters of Jewish wealth like a predator shark. She has half an eye on the Ark of the Covenant and the other half on the main chance. And if the eye has some garish mascara on it, so be it.

“It’s my superpower to become my client’s friends — or big sisters, or little sisters,” she said. “I’m not just there for an hour. It’s not just a transaction. It’s not just the High Holidays. It’s not even just Shabbat. I integrate myself into people’s lives and try to show how Judaism is integrated into their lives.”

Her superpower is dressing and acting like a call girl — on call for the Jews who finance her career.

But beyond the glitz and glamor, Eisenstadt’s work reflects a serious trend in American Judaism: the shifting of a center of gravity from communal institutions to individual experiences.

Trust me, that’s all surface-level stuff. Sure, some Jews probably chafe at the “traditions,” but when the fur starts to fly, they’ll be Jews first, last, and always. In the meantime, though, can’t they dress up and have some guilty fun?

Eisenstadt wants to be clear that she loves synagogue life. I love every shul I ever walked into. I feel like it’s a home, she said. She belongs to the Carlebach Shul, an Orthodox congregation on the Upper West Side.

“I do look at myself as an entrepreneur,” Eisenstadt said. I don’t look at myself as a threat. I look at myself as an option towards providing a service that only helps enrich Jewish experiences and perhaps does something that the regular synagogue model has not quite figured out, ceased to do, or that I possibly do better.”

She’ll enrich their experiences and herself at the same time. A Jew’s Jew, she is.

One recent evening, Eisenstadt invited three of her students to join her at a fundraiser event for the American Friends of the Israeli Navy. The students were thrilled to hang with their rabbi at a Thursday-night soiree at an event space in midtown Manhattan. Eisenstadt’s Jewdents may have been the youngest attendees by decades, but with their Prada bags they fit in perfectly.

You can bet when it comes to tiny and long-suffering Israel and its military, she is fully on board. And why not mix a little Israeli “patriotism” with some glitz and high-priced fashion accessories? They are Jews and they own the world, after all.

Maybe it means I’m an enabler of that sense of entitlement, but it’s the world I’m working in, Eisenstadt said of her high-end clientele. I’m the one who’s bringing people to the Jewish experience, teaching people how to pray, and facilitating prayer, of learning the texts, relating it to modern day and ushering people through holidays and lifecycle moments.

This is boutique Jewdom at is “finest.” She’s carved out the niche of niches, as the “pious” one who courts the rich and Jewish and flatters them with a tincture of “glamour” — and all the while assuring them that she will instill in their children the hatred of Amalek.

That’s win-win for these lousy Hebes.

And what a bright future this reptile courtesan has ahead of her. Scads of money, a reality TV show, the sky is the limit. Jewish wealth is a bottomless pit and she certainly has found a rich vein to exploit. She gives her clients the feeling that they are not betraying their ancestors by the emphasis on “tradition,” and she convinces them there is no contradiction between that and living immoral lives of gluttonous, disgusting excess.

It’s the best of both worlds — and the Jew has never wanted anything so much as having his cake and eating it too.

No, her future is so bright she might as well be wearing that fabulous silk prayer shawl all the time, she for sure won’t end up in Florida in white tennis shoes kibbitzing and kvetching over the lox. Hell no! She’ll have hit the wall long since by then, and she’ll be putting out books about how “Kosher sex” is great at any age. But for now, beneath that kippah is the blow-dried hair, and beneath her rabbinical garments is the teasing hint of cleavage. Yet didn’t the ultimate Jewish heroine, Esther, herself become bejeweled and put the greasepaint on her face, all to bedevil Haman?

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