Robyn Frisch, 59, has been a congregational rabbi at the same synagogue — Temple Menorah Keneseth Chai in Northeast Philadelphia — for 18 years. It’s just that the synagogue has fewer than 100 members, most of whom are senior citizens.
Frisch describes it these days as “a Friday night congregation,” with virtual services on Friday evenings and then a few Saturday mornings in person throughout the year. The congregation also gathers on major holidays, and Frisch frequently visits members in their homes, in hospitals, in rehab centers, wherever they may be.
But that is the extent of her rabbinical responsibilities. It’s a part-time job. This leaves plenty of time for other activities. In recent years, the other activity was a full-time job: overseeing a rabbinic fellowship at 18Doors, an interfaith organization.
Yet last year, Frisch left the job, which she said she loved. She had worked for 18Doors for 12 years, but she had an idea. She wanted to “create something involving dogs,” she said. Since then, she has created two dog-related initiatives: bereavement sessions for people who have lost pets and a new business, Pups Uniting People, that sells bandannas for dogs, many of them with Jewish themes, like Passover frogs and bees with honey for Rosh Hashanah.
Frisch has hosted several bereavement sessions, and she’s still trying to get the business off the ground with her friend, Shelly Shotel, whom she describes as the creative side of their partnership. But she’s moving, and she’s happy she started in this new direction.
“I’m in my 50s. I can handle failure. What I can’t handle is looking back in 10 years and saying I didn’t try,” she said.
The rabbi is known among readers of Philadelphia Jewish Exponent for her love of dogs. In 2022, her work creating and building the Mazel Pups Facebook page was featured. The page grew to over 1,200 members, attracting Jews from Philadelphia, New York, Israel and beyond. The article explained how Frisch launched the page because, as a wedding officiant, she noticed young couples taking pictures with their dogs or describing the dog as their “first kid.” She was also a dog lover herself, owning two, Bo and Frankie.
Frisch knew at the time that her two loves were dogs and Judaism; she just wasn’t sure if they could be connected. But the page allowed her to meet Jews she never otherwise would have met.
“When I started Mazel Pups, I was meeting Jews from all over,” she said.
There was the woman in Israel who worked as a dog photographer; the guy from Argentina who made aliyah and joined the reserves of the Israel Defense Forces, taking his dog with him during his 400-plus days in reserve duty after Oct. 7; and countless others.
“This is part of life in Israel, and this is part of life for so many Jews throughout the world,” she said.
By the time she reached her 10th year at 18Doors, Frisch started to think about how she wanted to spend the rest of her life. She asked herself if there was anything else she wanted to do, because if so, this was the time to try it.
She landed on uniting her two loves in perpetuity.
“I’ll just go to the dog park and start talking with people. We have so much in common because of our love of dogs,” she said. “It’s like Judaism.”
Frisch said she finds the bereavement work “incredibly meaningful.” “I’m realizing it’s not that different from when you lose a person. They’re really part of your life, and people go through a lot of pain that’s often not understood by people they’re closest to who don’t have pets,” she explained.
She said she finds the dog bandanna business to be “a lot of fun.” “We wanted this to be a product that would appeal to a lot of people. We did collar bandannas in the beginning.
Then we realized we really liked an elastic collar. I’m excited to be at a place where I feel like our product is something I know we’re super proud of,” she explained.
The rabbi is also starting her 19th year at Temple Menorah Keneseth Chai, which just marked its 100th anniversary in 2025.
“I love it there, and I hope they make it, as we say in Judaism, until 120,” she said.