225BatonRouge.com

Corie Yutkin’s questions led her to become a rabbi, but it was a chance friendship that led her and her family to Baton Rouge.

Within a day of moving here in September Corie turned 34 and stepped into the “very big shoes” of her predecessor, Barry Weinstein, to become B’nai Israel’s first female rabbi in its 150-year history.

“The congregation has just been amazing,” Yutkin says. “They have welcomed me with open arms, the epitome of Southern hospitality.”

After growing up in a Chicago suburb, Yutkin enrolled at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles in search of answers. “I wanted to learn what I called at the time ‘Jewish stuff,’” she says.

Her studies spurred more questions than answers. “I’ve learned, though, that the questions are the first step of the journey, so to be able to guide others in their journey of questions is what really made this a calling for me.”

She served for two years as assistant rabbi at Temple Bat Yahm in Newport Beach, Calif. It was there that Yutkin’s path to Baton Rouge began when she met Jessica Yellen, director of the B’nai Israel’s religious school. Yellen had grown up in Yutkin’s Newport Beach congregation, and during Hurricane Katrina she’d returned there to be with family. The two met one night after services and instantly clicked.

“After that we stayed in touch, and last November she mentioned that her rabbi was stepping down,” Yutkin says. “She asked how I would feel about coming to Baton Rouge and I sort

of laughed, saying, ‘that’s not going to happen.’”

Yellen had other ideas. “When I met her I was instantly drawn in by her warm, caring personality, her dedication to Judaism and her love for the people in her congregation,” Yellen says. “I knew that this was the kind of person we needed. I just knew our congregation would embrace her.”

Today Corie and Michael Yutkin, along with their 3-year-old beagle Napoleon, are settling in nicely as Corie tackles her toughest job yet.

“There’s no buffer anymore. But after leading my first service it felt like home. This is my congregation; these are my people. This is what I was looking for, and I didn’t even know it.”