Articles by Rabbi Vicki Axe

Rabbi Axe received a Bachelor of Music Education from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, MA in Music Education from the Ohio State University in Columbus, OH, and her Degree in Sacred Music and ordination as Cantor from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music. In 2008 Rabbi Axe was awarded a Doctor of Music, honorous causa from HUC-JIR, and Rabbinic Ordination from the Rabbinical Academy of America and received her Doctor of Ministry in Pastoral Care and Counseling from HUC-JIR in 2016. A master teacher, Rabbi Axe has prepared hundreds of children for their B’nai Mitzvah, taught cantorial and rabbinic students at the Academy of Jewish Religion and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, presented workshops on Jewish music and Jewish life for public schools, civic groups, and the Union for Reform Judaism, and visited many congregations as Scholar-in-Residence. Known for her talent and passion in the areas of Jewish education, conducting, and creative programming, as well as liturgical art, Rabbi Axe has served on the conducting faculty of the North American Jewish Choral Festival since 1997, directed URJ regional and national choirs, both adults and children, and was featured in programs of Jewish interest with Dave Brubeck and Marvin Hamlisch, for whom she also prepared a choir. Blessed with the gift of voice, Rabbi Axe feels as comfortable on the concert stage with a symphony orchestra as she does in the classroom with an audience of preschoolers or seniors. Her greatest joy is teaching and pastoral care which she offers from the bima, in the classroom, at a hospital bed, or on a stage. A national leader in the Reform Movement, Rabbi Axe is a past president of both the American Conference of Cantors, and the HUC-JIR Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music Cantorial Alumni Association, served on the Board of the Union for Reform Judaism, and currently serves on the School of Sacred Music Advisory Board. Rabbi Axe also serves her local community as a member of the Jewish Educators and Teen Professional Councils of Greenwich and Stamford, the Greenwich JNF Health and Healing Center Advisory Council, the Greenwich Hospital Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Professional Consultation Committee, and is a past officer of the Greenwich Fellowship of Clergy. Her greatest role is as wife to Dr. Harold Axe, and mother to their four sons, Judah and his wife Ellie, Noah and his wife Amira, Gabriel, and Daniel, all twenty and thirty-something, and most recently grandmother to Maren and Jillian.