For more than three decades, Congregation Sukkat Shalom, or “shelter of peace,” has welcomed diverse and interfaith families to participate in Jewish life, congregants say.
Now, Wilmette’s only Reform congregation is marking a milestone with the installation of Senior Rabbi Allison Tick Brill, the third person to assume the senior leadership role in the synagogue’s 31-year history.
She is also the congregation’s first female permanent senior rabbi.
“When our founding rabbi, Sam Gordon, retired about five years ago, the associate rabbi at the time, Carlie Daniels, served for about a year as our interim senior rabbi. She did not apply for the job as permanent senior rabbi as she had decided to return to her family home in South Florida,” said John Kupper, a former Board member of the congregation who serves on its social justice committee.
Rabbi Tick Brill is enthusiastic about her new role.
“The congregation has a tremendous energy of vibrancy and hopefulness and energy for the future, and it is so exciting to be in a religious institution that has that kind of fire within it,” said Tick Brill, a Deerfield native who resides in Highland Park with her husband and three young children.
“At a time when organized religion and religious institutions are having trouble communicating the relevancy of their work, Sukkat Shalom is sort of busting at the seams,” Tick Brill told Pioneer Press.
The congregation prides itself on being “profoundly diverse and open-minded,” according to Tick Brill, who added that while it’s common for Reform synagogues to have progressive values and welcome a variety of interfaith families, Sukkat Shalom’s “interfaith ethos runs very deep and very wide.”
“Our current president is a Catholic man. Our current treasurer is Mormon…so, they are both people who have married into Jewish families for many decades, who are deeply committed to the project of the synagogue,” Tick Brill said.
“It is unusual to have the highest leadership roles [in a congregation be] members of other faiths… we believe that the diversity of opinions and the richness that they bring from other traditions enhances our expression of Judaism and strengthens our tent.”
Tick Brill has served as a practicing rabbi for the past 11 years, joining the Wilmette synagogue in 2022 in a “very small” capacity to fill in for a rabbi on maternity leave.
Over the past four years, Tick Brill’s role and influence on the more than 300 North Shore families and community members of Sukkat Shalom has continued to grow, paving the way for her leadership role, which began July 1.
Tick Brill noted she embodies a “different portrayal” of the rabbi that comes to mind when most people think about a Jewish religious leader.
“I don’t have a long white beard,” she said with a laugh.
While it’s become increasingly common and widely accepted to have women serve in the rabbinate, “young women, young women in high leadership roles raising young children is kind of a newer model, so I’m excited to be bringing that to my congregation,” Tick Brill said.
After earning her bachelor’s degree in clinical and social psychology from the University of Rochester, she went on to attend seminary school at Hebrew Union College in New York, later becoming ordained in 2014.
But Tick Brill’s path to the rabbinate was far from traditional, she said, having chosen to become a trained, full-time hospital chaplain following her ordination.
“I showed up on my first day at New York Presbyterian Hospital carrying this rabbi’s manual…and really got a beautiful education in being a multi-faith chaplain,” Tick Brill said.
“I served patients of all different religious backgrounds in serious illness and end-of-life settings, and it really grounded my rabbinate in the universal and sacred bonds that connect all people.”
Tick Brill noted that this role was a “beautiful complement” to her future clergy career, providing the perspective and awareness needed to cultivate a pastoral approach grounded in compassion and acceptance.
Her chaplain work then led to her appointment as an assistant and associate rabbi at Congregation Temple Emanu-El in New York City, whose website describes it as the largest house of worship in the Western hemisphere for Reform Judaism.
Serving as one of three rabbis for the more than 2,200 practicing families attending worship, Tick Brill said it was a challenge to make the temple feel like an intimate space.
“I would walk to the middle of the bema, or ‘elevated stage,’ where I would lead teachings often and stand there and try to make this enormous space feel cozy and connected,” she said.
“And it was wonderful practice for serving this smaller congregation now.”
Congregation Sukkat Shalom has been located at its 1001 Central Avenue address in Wilmette since 2012, succeeding a Christian Science church in that space, according to Tick Brill.
“It has always been a religious institution, and we think that’s beautiful, that we’re using this home that once housed another faith tradition,” she said.
“We were so warmly welcomed into the Wilmette community and feel so grateful to be part of such a collegial, open, inclusive community.”
Sukkat Shalom also partners on various social justice efforts with local faith neighbors First Presbyterian Church of Wilmette and First Congregational Church of Wilmette, including hosting unhoused families twice a year at its temple with the nonprofit organization Family Promise.
In alignment with the acceptance of a diverse array of views and opinions, Tick Brill said the congregation has been pushed to further embody these founding principles in the wake of the current conflict in Israel.
“While we aren’t a political organization, we have a largely progressive congregation, and it’s certainly true that within our membership, there’s a lot of concern about Israel and the direction the government is headed,” Tick Brill said.
“We recognize that people come to synagogue for solace, for comfort, for uplift, and we have a tradition of respecting where people come from…our congregation, I think, has done a beautiful job of giving folks space to have differing views and offering a place of support and respite and affirmation of the peaceful and beautiful parts of Jewish life.”
It is also an increasingly “difficult and dangerous time in our world to be Jewish person,” she added, and Sukkat Shalom has made an effort to balance the concerns around anti-Semitism with a continued love and appreciation for the practice of the religion.
Tick Brill hopes to continue to inspire younger generations to pursue the faith.
Congregation Sukkat Shalom offers weekly Friday services at 6 p.m. and Torah study group sessions Saturdays at 9.a.m.
Special services are held for Jewish holidays and “bamitzvah” — a term that encompasses both bar and bat mitzvah — celebrations.
