Rabbi Yosi (Joel) Gordon was born and raised in Green Bay, Wisconsin. He discovered the joy and intensity of Torah and Jewish life through Hebrew school, BBYO, and Camp Ramah. Yosi was eager to master Hebrew and Jewish studies in classes and at the University of Wisconsin Hillel. His junior year in Israel was notable, not only for his studies at the Hebrew University, but for his work with troubled Israeli youth in Kiryat Yovel, teaching English at the YMCA, and his successful efforts to learn to speak Hebrew well enough to fool some Israelis.

During his six years at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Yosi devoted himself to becoming a master teacher of Jewish texts. Upon graduation, in 1972, he began his first full-time position as Assistant Principal at the Los Angeles Hebrew High School. There, he worked for six years in various administrative and programmatic capacities but, most important to him, was his work as a teacher. His students gave Yosi his greatest satisfaction and when asked to send samples of his "products" to the Covenant Foundation, Yosi objected, "They won't agree to climb into envelopes."

Yosi is always teaching. Last year he taught forty-five class hours per week. Even over the summer Yosi teaches and tutors children and adults while writing voluminous textbooks for his own classroom use.

"As long as I can remember, my fantasies and fascination were with teaching. I have always preferred the title 'teacher' to 'educator'," he says. "It conveys what is most important for me in my work and my life. A teacher is a person who works directly with students, who conducts a class, who transmits Jewish learning and helps students create a community of Jewish learners, one which shapes their lives and gives them the tools and purpose to continue to live lives of Jewish communal learning forever. 'Teacher' connotes kinds of relationships with students, individually and as a group. It is a limited relationship in scope, place, and time; yet ideally it creates directions in students which extend beyond those limitations."

Yosi has been a teacher at the Eau Claire, Wisconsin Mini-School for a year and a half, and is the recipient of the Covenant Award in 2000. He began teaching there to provide a good introductory course in Judaism to his congregants in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. "We are a congregation of about 40 households in west central Wisconsin," says Yosi. "I am the part time rabbi. I travel to Eau Claire 18 times each year to lead services, teach and perform other rabbinical functions, including teaching a Melton class."

He enjoys the personal contributions to discussions his students bring from their lives and thoughts. He feels the students are beginning to feel more secure in their Jewish commitments and ideas from the way they are participating more in services, offering opinions about Jewish topics, and planning to visit Israel.

"I hope to teach as long as I am able. It continues to provide me with surprise and challenge and enormous satisfaction in my life," says Yosi.

Rabbi Yosi Gordon can be reached by email at: rabbigordon@templesholomwi.org.