Susie Tanchel
Dr. Susie Tanchel is a Jewish educator and academic administrator whose career centers on pluralism, Jewish learning, and institutional leadership. Raised in South Africa during the apartheid era, she attended Jewish day schools. She developed an early sense of justice shaped by both the political environment and the Jewish community’s varied responses to apartheid. After completing high school, she spent six months living in Israel before relocating to the United States to attend Brandeis University, where she studied psychology and Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and held leadership roles within Hillel. Mentored by scholars including Marc Brettler and Sharon Feiman-Nemser, she pursued doctoral studies at Brandeis, integrating biblical scholarship and education. Dr. Tanchel is a founding faculty member of Gann Academy, where she served as Director of Tanach and later Associate Head of School, and later became Head of School at the Jewish Community Day School, one of the first openly gay heads of a Jewish day school in the United States. She currently serves as Vice President of Hebrew College in Boston.
In this interview, Dr. Tanchel reflects on her upbringing in South Africa, including her experiences in Jewish day schools, exposure to apartheid, and early engagement with questions of justice, pluralism, and Jewish responsibility. She discusses her educational path through Israel and Brandeis University, her academic mentors, and her decision to pursue Jewish education rather than a traditional academic career. Dr. Tanchel describes her coming-out process, which unfolded gradually during her college and graduate school years and later intersected with her professional life at Gann Academy, where she supported LGBTQ students and helped establish what would become the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance. She recounts her participation in the documentary Hineini, her work with Keshet’s Safe Schools Task Force, and her 2005 marriage to her wife, Jen, following the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. The interview also examines her role in founding and shaping Gann Academy, her leadership philosophy as Head of School at JCDS, and her emphasis on pluralism, character education, and institutional responsibility, concluding with reflections on her transition to Hebrew College and her broader impact on Jewish educational leadership.
The views expressed in these interviews are solely those of the speakers and do not reflect the positions of JWA or its affiliates.
