Nicola Feuchtwang was studying for her Masters in Jewish Studies when she was first asked to consider training as a rabbi.

She laughed out loud. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she remembers saying, “I’m 62!” Rabbi Feuchtwang – as she is now known – had worked in the NHS for 40 years and had only just retired. Still, she decided to take a leap of faith and enrolled in the programme at Leo Baeck College. She graduated this July.

“I first thought of being a rabbi when I was about seven years old,” she says, “but of course girls didn’t do that in those days”. Instead, Feuchtwang went to medical school and became a community-based consultant paediatrician specialising in child development.

Yet she still remained actively involved in the Jewish community as a teacher and a lay leader, among other things. “One of our rabbis used to refer to me as ‘para-rabbinic,’ and I was very happy in that role,” she explains.

It was once Feuchtwang retired that her para-rabbinic role began to evolve. First a part-time Masters in Jewish Studies, then a full-time rabbinic course. “It doesn’t quite feel real yet,” she says, “and yet in another way there are certain aspects of it which I’ve been doing all my life. Some of my friends have said to me: ‘you’ve always been my Rabbi’.”

Graduating alongside Feuchtwang is Martina Yehudit Loreggian. Like Feuchtwang, Loreggian came to rabbinics later in life, taking on the job as a second career.

Left to Right: Rabbi Nicola Feuchtwang, Rabbi Martina Loreggian, Rabbi Daisy Bogod (in front), Rabbi Matthew Turchin and Rabbi Eleanor Davis (Credit: Leo Baeck College)

She had been working as a project manager in Italy when she began becoming more involved with her synagogue. “After 17 years as a project manager, I was quite unhappy in my job,” she says, “and I started teaching and giving services at synagogue”. At 35, Loreggian made the change. “I thought ‘either I do it now or I never do it’”. And do it she did, by making the journey to the UK to study rabbinics.

She recalls: “I left my job and started this new adventure. It’s a moment of transition for me now, full of excitement, fulfilment, and worry.”

A rabbi’s job isn’t easy, and Loreggian is acutely aware of that. “As a rabbi, you’re looking after a whole community, and you have a lot on your plate,” she says. Still, the ex-project manager hopes her previous career can help her with the demands of her new life. “As a project manager, I learnt how to manage my time, according to priorities,” she explained. “The contemporary profession of the rabbi is not just pastoral care and religious study, it’s also about managing a community and doing admin.”

Feuchtwang also sees a lot of parallels between practising rabbinics and her previous career in medicine. As a doctor, she lived by the rule to first do no harm. “There’s a good Jewish tradition of that, too, of using your ears first, not your mouth,” she said.

As a paediatrician, she sought to understand how children see the world – something she wants to continue to focus on in her rabbinic life. “Having other skills and interests contributes to the kind of rabbi a person can be,” the doctor-turned-rabbi explains, “but it also contributes to the rabbinate as a whole.”

Rabbi Sam Fromson agrees. The Community Rabbi at Golders Green shul, Fromson developed his life as a rabbi alongside his other job running a start-up company that encourages a healthier lifestyle.

Fromson is cautious of saying what makes someone a better rabbi, as “some people need a single purpose,” he says. But in his case, having another job is helpful. “It helps me maintain my sense of sanity,” he says, “and it was what I needed for myself.”

“Doing rabbinic work is incredibly fulfilling,” according to Fromson, “but I’ve always enjoyed working in different spaces”. In some ways, his spaces couldn’t be more different – “lots of people in the tech world don’t understand, but are fascinated,” he says.

Left to Right: Rabbi Nicola Feuchtwang, Rabbi Josh Levy, Rabbi Alexandra Wright, Rabbi Matthew Turchin, Rabbi Mark Solomon, Rabbi Martina Loreggian, Rabbi Eleanor Davis, Rabbi Danny Smith, Rabbi Daisy Bogod and Rabbi Charley Baginsky (Credit: Leo Baeck College)

For Fromson, working as a rabbi alongside his other job makes rabbinic work more financially viable, too. “Financially, being a rabbi is not always a sustainable career,” he says. In that way, “rabbinics will be more successful when there are more people willing to take on a hybrid role.”

Loreggian certainly felt the financial strain when she switched careers. “I left a career and financial security, and so it was hard to make that change,” she says. “I’ve had to work really hard unfunded.” For her, though, it’s worth it. “It’s an amazing job and profession,”

Leaving a stable career isn’t the only challenge when it comes to training as a rabbi later in life. The course itself is full-on. “I found essay writing hard at 15,” says Feuchtwang. “It’s even harder 50 years later.”

In some ways, Feuchtwang wishes she’d made the change earlier. “It’s not to be taken lightly,” she says. “I joke to my friends: ‘If you’re going to do it, don’t wait till you’re 60.”

Still, for Feuchtwang, and many other second-career rabbis, taking on the job is a childhood dream come true – even if it comes a little later than expected. When Fechtwang told the Senior Rabbi at Alyth that she would be training in rabbinics, he replied “about time”.