What do a Chabad rabbi from Delaware, the director of congregational learning at a Conservative shul in Baltimore and the education director of a Reform synagogue in Abington have in common?

They're all full-time Jewish communal professionals working toward doctorates in Jewish education at Gratz College in Melrose Park. The program, now entering its fourth year, has 15 students, who combine classroom work with online study.

One student from the neighborhood is Cheltenham resident Mimi Polin Ferraro, director of education at Old York Road Temple-Beth Am. Ferraro said that she had been waiting nearly 20 years -- since completing her master's in Jewish education at Gratz in 1990 -- for the college to offer an Ed.D.

With a demanding job and four children, she couldn't possibly go to school full-time or relocate to another city for study.

So when the country's oldest, nondenominational institution of higher Jewish education -- it opened its doors in 1895 -- announced that it would award doctoral degrees, Ferraro was one of the first to apply.

Read the full article at The Jewish Exponent...