Clergy and Board

Rabbi Ilana Berenbaum Grinblat is grateful to serve as the rabbi of Temple Har Shalom of Idyllwild where she has served since 2022. She also serves as the Director of Education for Open Temple in Venice, CA.

She was ordained as a rabbi by the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies of the American Jewish University in 2001, which awarded her an honorary doctorate in 2022. At the AJU, she taught biblical interpretation to the rabbinical students from 2002-2018. She is the author of three books: The Viral Spread of Hope: Finding Inspiration in Tough Teimer, Blessings and Baby Steps: The Spiritual Path of Parenthood and Castles and Catch: Spiritual Lessons our Children Teach Us – and she writes regularly for the Jewish Journal.

Previously, she served for six years as the Vice-President of Community Engagement for the Board of Rabbis of Southern California at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. In that capacity she planned and conducted educational programs for and provided mentorship to rabbis of all denominations. She and her husband Tal are blessed to be raising their two children – Jeremy and Hannah

Rabbi Malka Drucker is a writer for over thirty five years and a rabbi for 18.  She is a mother of 2 sons, a grandmother of four.

She has written 23 books, including the Southwest PEN award winner, White Fire: A Portrait of Women Spiritual Leaders in America, and Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust. Her children’s book, Jewish American Heroes, won the New Mexico Book Prize. She is also the author of The Family Treasury of Jewish Holidays, Jacob’s Rescue, Frida Kahlo, and other books for young people.

Ordained at the Academy for Jewish Religion, Rabbi Drucker, the founding spiritual leader of HaMakom: The Place for Passionate and Progressive Judaism, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is their rabbi emerita. In 2016 she returned to the home she has owned in Idyllwild for forty years, and served as the rabbi of  Temple Har Shalom in Idyllwild for four years.

In July of 2020, she became Rabbi Emerita of THS. She currently resides in Santa Barbara.
Her website is: www.malkadrucker.com.