# Elisha Gechter Senior Director of Community Engagement, Harvard Hillel ![Photograph of a smiling woman with blonde hair in a dark turtleneck ](/sites/g/files/omnuum816/files/styles/hwp_4_5__480x600/public/2025-11/Elisha%20Gechter%20-%20Copy.jpg?itok=vmz8FX7w) smartphone [914-329-0587](tel:914-329-0587) email Rabbi Elisha Gechter joined Harvard Hillel in March as the Senior Director of Community Engagement. Her role is focused on activating and organizing Harvard’s Jewish alumni community to protect, enrich, and expand Jewish life at Harvard. She's dedicated to bridging the gap between the tremendous concern and dedication of our alumni, and the very real needs of Jewish students and Jewish life in this moment. She is quite familiar with our campus as she spent the last decade at Harvard Kennedy School where she was the Senior Program Manager for Fellowships Curriculum at the Center for Public Leadership. There she designed leadership learning experiences for over 100 fellows, oversaw the Wexner Israel Fellowship and the Wexner Senior Leadership Program. Elisha has been working in the Boston Jewish Community for 18 years – previously connecting people searching for community and for Jewish wisdom as the Associate Director of Adult Learning and Community Engagement at Hebrew College and fundraising with local young leaders at CJP. She has rabbinic ordination from Yeshivat Maharat (Modern Orthodox) in New York, an MA/MBA from Brandeis’ Heller Hornstein Program in Jewish Leadership and Non-Profit Management, and a BA in psychology from Yeshiva University’s Stern College. She lives in Somerville, MA with her husband and two kids where they attend services at Minyan Tehillah and the Tremont Street Shul and Elisha is a dedicated board member at Mayyim Hayyim Mikvah and Education Center. She's also a huge foodie and a fan of bluegrass music. - ## Chaplaincies [Harvard Hillel (Jewish)](/filter_by/hillel-foundation-jewish1)